


Come Loose Your Dogs Upon Me

by powerfulowl (StuckyFlangst)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Amputee Bucky Barnes, Anal Fingering, Anal Fisting, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Artist Steve Rogers, Body Dysmorphia, Bottom Bucky Barnes, Break Up, Bullying, Cock Warming, Creepy Alexander Pierce, Creepy Brock Rumlow, Dealing with the medical system, Dildos, Divorce, Dom Steve Rogers, During the temporary break up, Established Relationship, Everything Hurts, Exes to Lovers, Explicit Sexual Content, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Married Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Medical Conditions, Minor Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Nipple Clamps, Non-Consensual Touching, Oil Rig Worker Bucky Barnes, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Divorce, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Relationship breakdown, Restraints, Sexual Harassment, Shame, Sub Bucky Barnes, Temporary Break Up, The Temporary Break Up is Quite Long, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Top Steve Rogers, but it does get better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:21:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 57,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24453592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StuckyFlangst/pseuds/powerfulowl
Summary: Steve’s gaze ran up and down across Bucky’s naked skin. Every time, no matter how many hundreds, maybe even thousands by now, times Steve had looked at Bucky naked, Bucky felt bashful and exposed. No one else had ever looked at him like Steve did, so slowly and deliberately, savoring every part of Bucky even though he’d tasted them so many times before.-----Bucky and Steve have been together for years - married in the Fall of 2011. Steve is sick a lot and Bucky works hard to support them both, spending weeks away from home, always coming back to Steve. But when Steve gets the opportunity to receive a new treatment, it will change everything - not just his body, but their relationship and the life they have together.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 225
Kudos: 335





	1. You are a little mystery to me

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my Bucky is a fly in fly out offshore oil rig worker AU. As a guide to the reader, this fic starts off with quite an explicit sequence, and there is more in the first couple of chapters, but there is a lot of angst and plot through the middle. Temporary break ups are one of my favorite tropes. Neither Steve nor Bucky always make the best decisions in this story, and they do manage to hurt each other along the way, if that kind of angst isn't for you.
> 
> I chose not to use archive warnings, but I'll flag things in the notes and tags as they emerge. 
> 
> UPDATE 27/09/2020: The fic is complete now. What I know now that I didn't know then is that this fic is not very Peggy friendly. Sam makes some mistakes but is a good bro to everyone in the end. Please be careful if rape/non-con is a trigger for you.
> 
> For this chapter: Steve and Bucky are in a long term married relationship at the start of the story, and all their play in this chapter occurs in the context of already negotiated parameters - they have safe words, and know each others' limits. They began their relationship in their teens and there is a minor reference to their sexual activity as teenagers.
> 
> Please note the tags, and let me know if I miss anything.
> 
> Title and chapter titles from Nick Cave's 'The Ship Song'.

_You are a little mystery to me_   
_Every time you come around_

_James is walking down a street in the lower East Side, rugged up in a heavy pea coat, scarf and gloves. Natasha is stalking beside him, and they both observe the world in companionable silence. It’s strange to be back in New York – though Manhattan is easier, less familiar. The cold, the rush and push of people on the sidewalk, those were all once part of his life and stir memories he had long since put away._

_Suddenly he stops short, staring at the glass front of a small gallery tucked between two clothing stores._

_‘What?’ Natasha asks, stopping and turning._

_James steps out of the stream of traffic and looks at the poster in the window advertising and exhibition. Steve Rogers: Darling USA. An early career retrospective of New York’s own artistic golden boy. On the poster is a painting which shows an ominous view of the Manhattan skyline seen (James knows oh so well) from a rooftop in Brooklyn. The city is both full of promise and impossibly distant to the tiny figure hunched in the foreground, blond head bowed._

_James reaches out a gloved hand to touch the figure and meets cold glass._

_‘Do you want to go in?’ Natasha eyes him curiously. James looks through the glass._

_The blond-haired figure is so alone; so small._

\-----

**Seven years earlier**

Bucky felt a wave of joy wash over him as he pushed the door of the apartment open and saw Steve sitting at the kitchen table his sketching pencils spread out around him, the remnants of his concentration face lingering for a moment as his expression shifted to delight as Bucky entered the room.

‘Bucky!’ Steve hopped off his chair and barrelled towards Bucky, who dropped his bag and opened his arms wide, catching Steve has he launched himself up, grabbing Bucky’s neck and wrapping his legs around Bucky’s waist.

‘Stevie,” Bucky grinned at him before Steve crushed Bucky’s mouth with a kiss.

Bucky pushed the door closed behind him with his leg and stumbled with Steve in arms back to the table as Steve continued to plant kisses on Bucky’s laughing mouth.

Bucky sat Steve onto the table, careful to not crush any of Steve’s scattered papers, and dedicated himself to kissing Steve’s wonderful, soft mouth. Oh he had missed this, thought of this on wakeful nights listening to the ocean sob around him.

Obviously feeling Bucky focus, Steve deepened his kisses, swiping his tongue along the seam of Bucky’s lips, pushing into Bucky’s mouth, nipping at his lips.

Bucky moaned as Steve sucked on Bucky’s tongue and bit down hard as he ran his calloused fingers under Bucky’s shirt, squeezing the soft skin below his ribs.

‘ _Steve_ ,’ Bucky breathed, ‘you haven’t even offered me a drink yet.’

‘You wanna drink Buck,’ Steve whispered in his ear, then bit down on his earlobe, making Bucky whine. ‘Cos I’ve got a different welcome set up for you in the bedroom.’

Bucky groaned again, and heaved Steve up, laughing and wriggling in Bucky’s arms, carrying him through the small apartment to their room, placing Steve down on the bed.

Steve had a huge grin on his face as Bucky caught sight of the set up and moaned throatily.

‘Get undressed for me, Bucky,’ Steve stopped grinning, settling down and sitting very still on the bed, radiant blue eyes fixed on Bucky. Bucky licked his lips, his eyes drawn to the restraints Steve had attached to the four bedposts.

‘Now, Bucky,’ Steve’s voice was calm, commanding. He was so beautiful, sitting there, so small and fragile seeming with his thin wrists and skinny chest. He was wearing a loose, faded blue t-shirt and soft, worn black jeans. His blue eyes were stern as he gazed at Bucky, eyebrows pulled into a slight frown.

‘Yes, Steve,’ Bucky shucked off his denim jacket and pulled his t-shirt over his head. He could feel his skin heating under Steve’s regard as he toed off his boots and tugged off his socks one by one. His cock was already stirring in his pants as he unbuttoned his jeans and swiftly divested himself of both pants and boxers.

Steve’s gaze ran up and down across Bucky’s naked skin. Every time, no matter how many hundreds, maybe even thousands by now, times Steve had looked at Bucky naked, Bucky felt bashful and exposed. No one else had ever looked at him like Steve did, so slowly and deliberately, savouring every part of Bucky even though he’d tasted them so many times before.

Bucky’s cock swelled and hardened.

‘So pretty for me, Bucky.’ Steve crooned. ‘You’re just so eager for me, aren’t you? Been waiting these two weeks for me.’

Bucky nodded and bit at his lip.

‘Look at that pretty cock of yours, already getting all hard for me, like the little slut you are.’ Bucky blushed and lowered his eyes, shaking his head.

Steve hopped off the bed.

‘Lie down for me baby, on your back.’ Bucky stumbled to obey, splaying himself out star shaped on the bed. Steve moved around, fastening his ankles and wrists, checking the tightness of the cuffs, checking Bucky was okay. Then Steve shed his t-shirt and jeans, standing in his red boxer briefs and looking over Bucky with a critical eye, like when he examined one of his paintings. Bucky’s skin tightened and itched under that look, flayed open. He could already feel tears pressing against his eyes, his breath quickening.

Steve climbed carefully onto the bed and swung a leg over Bucky, lowering his ass so Bucky’s cock was pressed beneath it.

Bucky looked up at Steve straddling him, cock only half hard in his briefs, and his heart clenched. There was so much here, in this moment – all those awkward times when they were teenagers, touching each other, and Bucky would come within 30 seconds flat of Steve’s hand or mouth getting on his dick. But Steve was always so angry, so frustrated that the desire he felt would leave him only half erect, or erect but unable to come, wriggling away from Bucky and hiding himself.

Bucky hadn’t believed it for a while – thought that Steve was maybe just fooling himself, fooling both of them, and wasn’t really bi. Was just indulging Bucky. They had some terrible fights and broke up a few times; never able to stay apart, stay mad for more than a day and a night. Bucky remembered Steve coming in through his bedroom window one night, breathless and shaking from the effort of climbing onto the window ledge. ‘ _I can’t go to sleep mad at you Bucky. What if I woke up and you were gone?_ ’ ‘ _I’m never going anywhere without you Steve_.’

And somewhere in all of that they actually managed to have some conversations. ‘ _What do you like Steve, just tell me. What do you fantasise about? Is it girls?’ ‘No Bucky, no, it’s you, it’s just….’ ‘Go on, I won’t be mad.’ ‘I think about, I dunno, you being tied down, and me, like…’ ‘Like bondage stuff? Whips or whatever?’ ‘Something like that – I don’t really know. I’ve watched some stuff.’_

And it all brought them here, Bucky between Steve’s legs, Steve’s chest bare – his skin white and translucent, ribs showing, so strong, so determined, _in charge_. Bucky shuddered, squirming and feeling the restraints tugging at his wrists and ankles.

‘So eager,’ Steve shook his head. ‘Such an eager little slut.’ Bucky whined and wriggled more, wanting Steve to touch him somewhere, anywhere.

With a knowing looking in his eye Steve reached into the drawer beside him, where he had obviously gathered all the things he planned to play with.

‘Shut your eyes,’ Steve ordered, and Bucky obeyed immediately, panting a little in anticipation.

And then cried out as a cold clamp pinched his left nipple, and again as another pinched his right. He was writhing now, eyes squeezed shut, pain shooting out across his chest.

‘ _Steeeeeve_ ,’ he wailed.

‘Shhhh, baby, you’re okay, you can take it. Look,’ Steve reached down and gripped Bucky’s cock hard, ‘you like it so much, so good for me.’ Bucky shouted out, bucking his hips as Steve gave a couple of hard, quick strokes.

Then Steve was rummaging in the draw again, and Bucky felt Steve’s hands smearing him with lube, sliding a silicon cock ring down to nestle against his balls. Bucky moaned again, feeling the sharp burning pain in his nipples and the dull, pleasurable throb of his dick blending together with the gentle touch of Steve’s hands on his belly and thighs in the sweetest melody.

Bucky was distantly aware that he had started to cry a little. He loved that. Out on the rig, the only acceptable tears were the ones the salt wind tore from your eyes; here was all that emotion Steve would bleed out of him, playing him like an instrument.

Bucky was aware of Steve loosening the restraints around his left ankle and pushing his leg up to his chest. Bucky was like clay, warm and ready to be pushed and moulded however Steve wanted him. Steve moved around the bed and Bucky’s ankle was fastened again, this time up near his arm.

Steve moved around to the other side and repeated the procedure. Bucky was now spread open totally, his ass tugged off the bed a little, his legs and cheeks spread wide.

‘You can open your eyes Buck, see how beautiful you look.’ Bucky opened his eyes and looked down, Steve kneeling between his splayed legs, smiling a self-satisfied smile. Bucky’s cheeks heated, aware of his hole twitching, his cock red and engorged from the ring, his balls full and tender hanging beneath Steve’s gaze.

‘You’re gonna watch this.’ Steve held two lubed fingers up and ran them around Bucky’s rim, flicking his eyes from Bucky’s ass to his face, then fixing on his face as Steve thrust the two fingers right inside in one swift movement. Bucky wriggled and moaned, so tightly bound, hot with shame and arousal.

Steve gently kept rubbing, twisting his fingers a little to brush Bucky’s prostate, making Bucky beg for more, but just withdrawing his fingers with another wicked grin.

‘So tight but so eager, Bucky, whatever will I do with you.’ Steve was reaching behind himself and Bucky gasped a little as his hand re-emerged holding a huge, red dildo covered with small, rounded spikes.

‘I bought you a present Bucky, ‘ Steve smiled at him.

‘It’s too big, Steve,’ Bucky wiggled his ass, trying to escape and at the same time desperately wanting Steve to fill him with every inch of it. He could already feel his hole clenching, his cock impossibly filling more.

‘Don’t be silly, Bucky, you can take it, you’re so good at taking it.’ Steve laid the dildo down on the bed beside him then re-slicked his fingers and breached Bucky again, working from two to three, then finally filling Bucky with his pinky as well, working to stretch out his rim. All the while Steve peppered the inside of Bucky’s thighs with licks and kisses, murmuring encouragement.

Bucky could hardly move, and his muscles ached from being held so long, his wrists hot and tender.

‘Your hands are so big Stevie,’ Bucky slurred. ‘So beautiful.’

By the time Steve pressed the head of the dildo to Bucky’s hole and started to slowly press in, Bucky was floating, warm and liquid. The pain of the stretch, the pressure of the spikes on his walls, was drawing an incoherent babble from his lips. He was dimly aware of his dry throat, his quick breaths, and intensely aware of Steve’s blue eyes raking across his body from Bucky’s face twisting from the intensity of the sensation to what must be the obscene sight of his body taking the dildo, his ass opening up and taking it in.

Bucky have a sobbing cry, wiggling and bearing down as much as he could, arms and legs tugging helplessly at the restraints.

‘So good for me, always so good for me sweetheart.’ Steve’s words were like a soothing balm, heightening the waves of pleasure as the rough dildo ran back and forth over his prostate, sending hot spikes of pleasure to join with the sparks still flaring and fading from his abused nipples.

And then Steve was leaning down and taking Bucky’s cock into his mouth while fucking him deep and hard with the dildo. Bucky was going to split in two, break, die from the soft swirl of Steve’s mouth on the tip of his cock. And then he was coming, the pulses intensified by the band of the cock ring.

For a few agonising thrusts Steve kept going with the dildo, running his teeth along Bucky’s oversensitive cock. Bucky screamed, completely consumed by sensation, sobbing as Steve sat back on his haunches and watched as he pulled the dildo out of Bucky’s ass and carefully set it aside.

Then Steve was unbuckling him, touching him, kissing him softly, stroking his hair, lifting his head and pouring cold water down his throat.

Bucky hiccupped softly and nestled into Steve’s chest.

Steve, always prepared, had a soft towel to pat down Bucky’s sweaty skin and wipe the tears and snot off his face. He tugged the comforter up over them both and wrapped Bucky up in his bony, perfect limbs. Bucky could feel Steve’s own cock soft against his skin, and it was perfect, it was Steve.

‘You with me, pal?’ Steve murmured. Bucky nodded groggily and grinned.

‘Nice welcome home Steve. I don’t s’pose you cooked as well? I’m starving.’

Steve laughed and shook his head.

‘I didn’t, but Mrs Miller did, so there’s casserole.’

‘God bless Mrs Miller,’ Bucky sighed happily.

Bucky hated his job, hated that it took him away from his husband for so many weeks at a time. But he fucking loved coming home.

\-----

The next morning Steve was up and about by the time Bucky woke. He could smell coffee but couldn’t hear Steve banging about.

When Bucky stumbled out, dishevelled, in sweatpants and a hoodie, he filled his cup from the half full percolator jug and tracked down Steve in his studio, paints out.

‘Mornin’ beautiful,’ Bucky pecked him on the cheek and Steve allowed it with a wrinkle of his nose.

‘Watcha workin on?’ Bucky asked, flopping down.

‘Mmmm,” Steve replied, distracted and dabbing at the canvas, ‘a painting for Mrs Miller of her grandson.’

Bucky sipped his coffee, and looked out the window, knowing Steve hated it when he examined works in progress before invited to do so.

‘Oh,’ Steve focused a little more and turned to Bucky. ‘She has a few things you could help her with, actually. I think one of her cupboard doors is coming off, and she needs some stuff moved down to the basement storage area.’

‘Sure,’ Bucky nodded. Mrs Miller didn’t like Bucky anywhere near as much as she liked Steve. She viewed Bucky more as an occasionally useful accessory who could move heavy objects and repair things, while Steve was a kindred spirit and surrogate son.

Steve sighed, and looked mournfully at his canvas. He looked absolutely adorable in Bucky’s expert opinion. He was smeared with both blue and yellow paint, and wearing only a loose tank top which gave Bucky a superb view of his nipples, and a pair of extremely well fitting yoga tights, which gave Bucky a superb view of his small, perky ass.

Bucky sighed as well and purred a little like a contented cat.

But when Steve turned, he was clearly discontented, and Bucky reached out a hand.

‘What’s up sweetcheeks?’

Steve snorted in response to Bucky’s ridiculous term of endearment and ran a hand (and a big blob of blue paint) though his already wild hair.

‘I just feel so useless, you know? I can’t help her out at all when you’re not here. Nor anyone else. Lucy’s ex was back around the other week, and he just laughed at me when I told him to get lost.’

‘Steve, did you get into a fight?’ Bucky asked, working up to a reprimand.

‘No,’ Steve chucked his brush into a jar of water and splashed himself and floor. ‘I didn’t even make it that far. The jerk laughed at me and before I could do anything some _random stranger_ on the street stepped into to defend me against him.’

‘Oh god,’ Bucky tried to stifle a laugh, ‘that poor guy. I bet you weren’t happy about that.’

‘Bucky, don’t laugh at me!’ Steve cross his arms and glared. ‘I just feel so useless, here in the apartment all the time while you’re off working to support us both, and pay all my bills, and what am I doing? Painting pictures of toddlers and having tea with old ladies. I can’t even cook for you.’

‘Steve, no, you do so much. You care so much. Mrs Miller loves you way more than me, which is why you’re painting her ugly grandkid and making him way cuter than he deserves. You do loads of stuff – volunteering at the day refuge with the art classes, helping Lucy out with her court case.’

Steve huffed angrily. ‘Sure, I do some stuff on the rare occasion when I’m well, but otherwise I’m curled up here in a ball with some ailment or another, or having an asthma attack on the staircase…’

‘You had an attack on the staircase?’ Bucky interrupted. ‘Did you have your inhaler?’

‘ _Yes I had my fucking inhaler James_ ,’ Steve yelled, and Bucky sat back into his chair.

‘No need to yell Steven,’ Bucky responded snarkily, heart sinking but unable to derail the argument.

‘ _Yes there is Bucky because you never take me seriously_.’

‘I do, Steve, I do,’ Bucky pleaded, ‘I just refuse to agree that me taking you seriously involves me agreeing that you’re useless. You’re everything to me Steve, you make amazing art, you have a huge heart even if you are a prickly asshole, and I _love you_.’ Now Bucky was yelling, which probably wasn’t the best way to declare his fucking undying, all consuming love for one Steven Grant Rogers.

‘ _Well I’m sorry if being the object of your love isn’t enough to make me feel worthwhile Bucky_.’

Bucky stopped short at that and blinked at Steve.

‘That wasn’t what I said Steve,’ he said quietly.

‘Well that’s what it sounded like to me,’ Steve turned back to the painting and scowled furiously, shrugging Bucky’s hand off when he touched his shoulder.

After a pause, Bucky said, ‘I’ll go help Mrs Miller.’

\-----

By the evening, when Bucky returned, Steve frowned at him, but pulled him in for a rough kiss. They sat and ate the pasta Bucky made, and Bucky told a bunch of stories about the crew on the rig, exaggerating the tales of Dum Dum the derrickman, Falsworth the subsea engineer, and Dernier the rig welder.

Bucky had worked his way up to driller and was hoping for a promotion to drill leader soon. The extra money would go a long way and pay for some treatments for Steve that his work insurance didn’t cover.

On the bookshelf was a photo of Steve and Bucky on their wedding day two years ago, not long after New York had legalised same sex marriage. They had already been together for five years by then, since high school, though Bucky had spent a lot of time in Texas working as a roughneck to try to make enough money to help Steve’s scholarship at arts school go a little further.

But neither of them could keep up with Steve’s medical bills after Steve’s mom died, leaving him a tiny apartment but little else.

When Bucky has proposed, Steve had set yes loudly, laughing and giving Bucky one of his koala hugs when Bucky straightened up off his knee in the park. They had used Steve’s parent’s rings and got married in the registry office with Becca as their witness. With Bucky working so much down in Texas and Steve sick a lot neither of them had many other friends left.

Bucky looked fondly at the picture and then at Steve, who was looking preoccupied and frowny. Bucky felt a familiar fear stirring in his gut, not that Steve didn’t love him, or hadn’t said yes with all his heart, but that Steve believed at some level that Bucky had only married him out of a sense of obligation, because Steve had no one else to take care of him now, and if they were married Bucky’s work insurance would cover Steve.

And Bucky had never quite found a way to say that Steve took care of Bucky, filled his life with colour; tell Steve about the strong icy winds which Bucky knew would break him and take him away if it weren’t for the anchor of Steve holding him tightly and fiercely to the earth.

Steve was grumpy for the rest of Bucky’s leave, and Bucky tried not to feel resentful as he got back onto the plane for another two week stint out on the rig, twisting his ring off and stowing it away for safe keeping.


	2. We define our moral ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky’s throat jammed up, and he stared at their hands linked together. Steve would hate this, hate what he was doing. He’d say Bucky was making unnecessary sacrifices, that Steve had lived this long and he would live a few more years yet. That Bucky shouldn’t be taking this choice from him.
> 
> Bucky could see their matching rings – just cheap sterling silver bands. They had promised in their vows to be honest and true to one another, Steve’s eyes burning fiercely as he made his vows to Bucky. ‘I will love you, I will share the secrets of my heart with you.’
> 
> But what good was any of that if Steve was gone?
> 
> \-----
> 
> Bucky and Steve deal with the horrors of the US medical system, but find a little comfort with each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, the ins and outs of insurance coverage are not my area of expertise. I am aware that healthcare is incredibly expensive in the US, even when you have coverage, and I've tried to capture some of that. Also smut, because fiction, like life, requires balance.

_We talk about it all night long  
We define our moral ground  
  
_

_Does he want to go in? James can feel the cold of the glass even through his gloves. Natasha waits patiently for his answer, watching their breath fog up the window. The gallery is designed so that even with the glass front, the view of the inside is mostly blocked by a screen. Bucky can get a glimpse of a wall beyond and the edge of a painting._

_‘Could you go in and scout it out for me?’ James asks._

_‘Scout for?’ Natasha inquires, turning her head towards him with a half smile._

_‘A large blond man with blue eyes,’ James replies, voice carefully controlled._

_Natasha nods and slips I the door. James wanders down the street a little, staring without seeing into the shop fronts._

_Natasha materialises beside him._

_‘Yeah, he’s in there.’_

_James’ breath catches for a moment in his chest, carefully constructed dams in his heart creaking alarmingly._

_‘Let’s get going,’ he says in a strained voice._

_Natasha, friend that she is, says nothing, and they continue together through the freezing New York day._

_\-----_

Bucky opens the door and the apartment is quiet. Steve is sitting at the table, the usual scatter of papers around him, but he’s staring into space, not responding to the sound of the door opening.

‘Stevie,’ Bucky says, stomach clenching with fear. Bad news maybe? Steve had an appointment at the clinic today. Bucky couldn’t make it back for it, and he already regrets it, dropping his back to the floor and shutting the door hurriedly.

Steve turns slowly, blinking at Bucky, the with a jolt comes back to himself and slips of the chair.

‘Bucky.’

Bucky is already there beside him, scooping him into a hug, kissing his soft hair. Was he feverish?

‘What’s wrong? Is there something wrong?’

‘Oh no, Buck, sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you.’ Steve held Bucky’s face and pulled him down for a chaste kiss. ‘I just….’ He paused and looked over the table.

Bucky could see now that they weren’t the usual sketches, but rather sheets of information.

‘Why don’t you sit down, Bucky.’ Steve gestured and then went to the kitchen to prepare some of the herbal tea he loved so much, which Bucky tolerated as long as it came with liberal dashes of honey.

Bucky could see that the papers were all technical medical details, but his eyes were swimming and he couldn’t take it in. Not bad news. Did that mean it was good news?

Steve came back and set two cups of steaming tea on the table.

‘So,’ he said, rubbing his hands along his thighs, and tossing his hair out of his eyes. It was getting longer. Bucky kept his pretty short at the moment – it was easier at work – but he loved the way Steve’s blond hair refused to stay put, to succumb. He supressed the urge to brush his fingers through it, feel its softness.

‘I went to the specialist today,’ Steve continued, ‘and he’s found out about this new treatment for immune disorders.’

‘Experimental?’ asked Bucky, gnawing at the inside of his cheeks.

‘No, not really,’ Steve shook his head. ‘They’ve run trials, and they have FDA approval and everything. This would be the first full clinical program, and so there would be some monitoring, but it’s not experimental.’

Buck exhaled. That was good, because Steve wouldn’t be a lab rat, but also probably meant it would be expensive.

Steve looked at him, of course realising what Bucky was thinking. ‘Look Bucky, I know your insurance might not cover it, or cover it all, but the specialist said I could make an appointment and we could also get advice on the payment options.’

Bucky could see that Steve was trembling a little, his jaw set in a firm line but the hope just busting out of him. How could Bucky say no to that.

‘Of course, Steve, of course we’ll go. If I get the promotion we might even be able to cover a gap if there is one.’ He drew Steve into a hug, feeling his heart crashing against the walls of his skinny chest, the quick breaths in his lungs. ‘Sssshh, Stevie, don’t get to worked up about it, hey?’ Bucky rubbed small circles on the small of Steve’s back, where Bucky knew it hurt all the time.

‘It’s just,’ Steve’s voice was thick with tears – tears Steve always refused to let fall, even when he was safe with Bucky. ‘It’s just it might stop the pain, the specialist said. And,’ he drew a deep shuddering breath, ‘now that I’ve thought about that, about it not hurting, it’s like I’m noticing the pain in a way I haven’t for years. Before it was just an endurance event, I just had to bear it forever. But what if I don’t, Bucky? What if I don’t?’

Bucky rocked Steve in his arms, pulling him into his lap, rubbing the back of his neck. And Steve let him, burrowing into Bucky’s shoulder, breath hitching.

They stayed like that for a long time.

\-----

The day of the appointment Steve was antsy all morning, snapping at Bucky when he tried to get Steve to eat, storming into his studio and slamming the door, then scowling when he emerged two hours later and Bucky asked what he’d been working on.

They caught the subway to midtown, where they found themselves standing together in front of a gleaming, architecturally designed clinic. An expensive looking clinic, Bucky couldn’t help thinking. Then Steve’s calloused hand slipped into his and squeezed, and when Bucky looked down he could see how Steve had set his jaw and his shoulders, and only the tremble of his fingers in Bucky’s grip gave away how scared he was.

‘Come on, punk,’ Bucky said, squeezing Steve’s hand in return and leading him up the stairs.

At the reception they were greeted by a cheerful brunette woman named Darcy. She said the doctor would come down to meet them both, and then later Bucky could meet with the clinic Manager, Sharon, and discuss payment schedules if they decided to proceed.

Dr Erskine when he appeared was a friendly, rumpled man with wild hair and glasses. He smiled gently at Steve and Bucky immediately found his heart warming towards him. Erskine shook both of their hands and gestured for them to follow him.

‘You are locals, yes, of New York?’ he asked.

‘Brooklyn born and bred,’ Steve answered.

‘I have arrived not long ago from Germany, and I find many things about your country very strange,’ Erskine said, ‘but I very much like this city. Excellent sandwiches.’

As they entered Erskine’s office they could see that he did, indeed enjoy sandwiches and had a plate piled with them on a table. His desk was obviously off limits, covered by a precarious mountain of books under which a computer still seemed to be functioning.

They sat at the table with Erskine and he gestured for them to eat.

Bucky and Steve were never ones to say no to a free feed, though Bucky could tell Steve was not enjoying his pastrami as much as usual.

‘So, Steven, I have read your file and you have a very interesting condition, and one I think my treatment could work very well for. The treatment involves a combination of drug therapy and low doses of a particular novel type of radiation.’

Erskine pushed some sheets of paper across the table, one of which had a long list of drug names on it, and the others with diagrams of cells, and wavelengths, and particles. Bucky frowned at the documents, trying to link it to the scraps of information he recalled from high school physics and biology. All that had come so easily to him. But this was complex stuff, and Bucky felt a certain bitterness that he was so poorly equipped to understand what they might do to Steve.

Erskine looked at them both sympathetically.

‘I know this is very complicated, and words like radiation are very frightening. But these doses are low and administered over the year of the program. The combination of the drugs and the radiation stimulate the patients suppressed immune system and effectively supercharge the body’s natural systems.’

Bucky looked at Steve, who was frowning at the information pages, his hair falling across his face and his jaw twitching. Bucky put a hand on Steve’s thigh and took a deep breath.

‘Umm, I understand this treatment is pretty new, how was it trialled and tested?’ Bucky asked.

Erskine nodded, munching on a mouthful of sandwich. ‘We ran extensive trials here at the clinic.’ He swallowed his mouthful. ‘Sorry, that was very rude, it has been a busy day.’ He cleared his throat and continued.

‘I came here from Germany to run the trials ten years ago, based on my research. The initial trials were run on people with HIV, to see if we could improve the effectiveness of HIV drugs through combining it with this radiation treatment. That was very successful, so we moved on to testing the drugs on people with other autoimmune diseases like lupus.’

Erskine pushed some more information across the table, this time with statistics on the trials – changes in various levels and measurements which all blurred in front of Bucky’s eyes.

‘The whole process received FDA approval last year. This will be our first intake into the program following trials.’ Erskine smiled at Steve, who was jiggling his legs and breathing quickly. Bucky looked at him, trying to assess whether he still wanted Bucky to take the lead, or whether he was ready with his own questions yet.

‘Are there any side effects?’ Bucky asked the question that was weighing heaviest on his mind. In Steve’s medication packets there were always reams of potential side effects, and Steve usually suffered from at least one of them. Over the years it had become hard to pick apart Steve’s illness and the side effects from the drugs.

Erskine nodded again. ‘Yes, there were some side effects observed. For example, for some patients with disorders that had inhibited their growth as children or adolescents, once the treatment started to work they started to have a growth spurt, which cause some pain – growing pains I think you call it in English. But this was a temporary side effect.

‘Other common side effects are fatigue, insomnia, loss of appetite, weight loss or weight gain, and mood alterations.’ Erskine pushed across yet another pamphlet. ‘I would stress, though,’ he continued, ‘that the clinical program has been designed to mitigate these side effects. The treatment includes sessions with a psychologist, a physiotherapist and a nutritionist to provide holistic management of the effects – both positive and negative – of the treatment.’

Bucky’s stomach clenched a little. All those allied services were only partially covered by his insurance, he knew straight away.

‘Can I opt out of those?’ Steve asked, obviously thinking along the same lines.

‘No,’ Erskine shook his head. ‘Because the treatment has such different effects on each individual, the FDA only granted approval subject to conditions, and one of those was that the program had to include a suite of complementary services.’

Erskine was definitely looking at them sympathetically now. Bucky could tell he was assessing their cheap clothes and their youth. They were here alone, not with family. Just two kids holding hands. Because they were now – Steve was clutching Bucky’s fingers, the tight mask of his face already holding back disappointment.

‘It is really a wonderful program, Steve.’ Erskine leaned forward, pushing his plate aside. The stilted professionalism melted a little, and his face took on the air of a concerned, affectionate uncle. ‘It has changed people’s lives. People who have always been in pain no longer in pain; people who had to shut themselves off from the world now able to go outside, go into crowds; people who thought they would not live another year are now healthy and expect to live as long as any of us can.’

Steve’s hand was trembling in Bucky’s, and Bucky could feel the warmth of that same hope in his own chest, and the cold terror of being so close and being denied.

There was a knock on the door and a smoothly groomed blond woman in a navy pant suit came into the room.

‘Aah, Sharon,’ Erskine sat back into his chair again, adjusting his glasses nervously. ‘Steve, James, this is Sharon, the Manager of the Centre.’

Steve and Bucky stood, and Sharon shook their hands.

‘I’ll be discussing your insurance coverage and the payment arrangements. Would you like to do that before or after the tour.’

Bucky looked down at Steve and swallowed.

‘Um, maybe Steve could take the tour and we could discuss the paperwork, then Steve can come in at the end?’ Bucky suggested.

‘Sure.’ Sharon smiled again – it was a nice smile, but Bucky couldn’t help feeling that she was the final, immovable object in the way of Steve’s treatment. Dr Erskine looked like if he could he would give everyone who needed it treatment for free. But this was the good ol’ USA and it didn’t work that way.

Bucky followed Sharon to another office as Steve trailed after Erskine, who was gesturing and talking even more excitedly now that the business end was clearly out of his hands. Sharon’s office was the same size as Erskine’s, but her large, modern desk was tidy, monitor and keyboard lined up perfectly off to the right hand side, a notebook with a pen lying beside it and a single framed photo facing away from Bucky.

Sharon gestured for him to sit across from her, and then opened a draw and pulled out an organised stack of papers.

‘James, I’m really pleased that Steven was referred to the clinic. Dr Erskine seems sure that the program would be particularly beneficial for his condition.’ Sharon’s smile was warm, but Bucky could hear the icy approach of the winds of bureaucracy.

‘Your insurance will cover some aspects of Steve’s treatment, but not all.’ Sharon handed him five pages with a table of items, with columns for total cost, insurance coverage, and the remainder outstanding.

Bucky was regretting the sandwich, feeling his tense stomach pushing bile back up into his throat. He could see even at a glance that there was going to be quite a gap to cover. It looked like some of the items insurance might not cover at all.

He flicked through, making his way slowly to the totals line down the bottom, trying to add in his head so it wasn’t too much of a surprise.

‘Your insurance will cover a large portion of the overnight stays in the clinic, and a fair percentage of the drug costs. It will cover some of the radiation treatment, and it will cover a portion of the allied care costs.’

Sharon’s voice washed over Bucky as he stared at the totals line. The total outstanding amount was more than Bucky’s salary for the year. A lot more.

‘What, um, what are the payment arrangements,’ Bucky asked, concentrating on keeping his voice level.

Sharon gave him another schedule.

‘Given your level of insurance coverage, we would require a $20,000 payment upfront, and then payments in advance each month for the course of the treatment. The treatment takes 12 months, with some follow up every month for the following year, and every three months the year after, and then yearly for the next eight years.’

Bucky didn’t really care about follow up appointments. If they could do the first year, anything was possible. But they couldn’t do it. They could make the first payment. The small amount left over from Steve’s mother plus savings scraped away over the years, not eaten away completely by frequent health emergencies, would just cover $20,000.

But after that Bucky’s salary wouldn’t cover the payments, let alone their living expenses.

Bucky thought he might throw up, thought about Steve’s face when he talked about not being in pain anymore, thought about Steve being able to go out in winter without his chest making terrible noises, go out without always worrying about catching something on the subway, Steve living until he was old. Bucky’s breath caught in his throat.

The door opened and Erskine and Steve entered. Steve’s eyes were open wide, shining radiant blue at Bucky though his long lashes. His skin was pale and soft, his slight frame tilted slightly from the scoliosis, almost imperceptible.

‘Oh Bucky,’ Steve breathed, moving and pressing close to Bucky. It was so unusual for him to be so demonstrative in public, Bucky knew he must be really emotional. ‘It’s so amazing. I met the psychologist, Dr Banner, and he was lovely. And Sam, the physiotherapist has already given me some exercises for my back. The rooms are amazing. They have paintings and art from some of the trial patients. People are encouraged to express how the treatment makes them feel.’ Steve was crowding into Bucky’s arms, burying his head in Bucky’s chest, even though there were other people in the room.

Bucky held his slight frame, pressed kisses into Steve’s soft blond hair. Tears were springing into his eyes.

‘If you’d like to take some time to discuss, there’s a room through here,’ she opened a door to a small room with two armchairs, and Bucky led Steve in, keeping an arm wrapped tightly around Steve’s waist.

As the door shut Bucky could see Dr Erskine’s kind brown eyes tracking them, Sharon sitting back at her desk and steepling her fingers.

Steve collapsed into the chair. ‘It’s okay Bucky,’ he said in a trembling voice. ‘I can already tell it’s going to be too much. Everything was so nice, everyone was so nice, I know it’s too good for us.’

Bucky buried his head in his hands, grimacing and doing sums in his head. He could pick up some extra shifts on the rig, but the health and safety rules mean there was a limit to that. Sometimes he got good overtime if there was an alarm and it was all hands on, but that couldn’t be relied on.

Or there was Hydroil.

He had been trying not to think about it, trying not to think about the texts he’d been getting from Brock. _Zola left u know_. _The new guy Pierce is rly good. U know u wanna come back. Miss me Buckster?_

Hydroil was his first job down in Texas, secured through a brother of a friend. It was shit work being a roustabout, and the pay was awful, but you didn’t need any skills and Bucky’s friend had convinced him it could lead to bigger and better things. And he had worked his way to roughneck (such dizzying career heights he thought with a bitter twist) but had endured two years of hideous bullying by the manager, Zola, and a lot of very heavy drinking with a big crew of guys he didn’t like.

‘ _Hey Bucky, we’re all getting horny as shit out here, maybe you could suck us all off? Or let us stick it in you ass? You like taking it?_ ’ Brock had been a total asshole. ‘ _Just joking Buckster, just kidding around, none of us are faggots here, don’t worry. Maybe we should be worried about you, hey?’_

But after Bucky had worked his way up the chain a bit – possibly because it was easier for Zola to torture him when he was a roughneck, putting him on the hardest tasks, calling him a pretty city boy, asking if he could take it as he was heaving heavy machinery in the stinking Texas heat – he had managed to get the job on an the Southern Sea Resources offshore rig with better pay and better prospects.

But Brock still had his number and was always suggesting he should come back.

But Steve would never agree. Bucky had been so unhappy that whole time. Steve and he had argued a lot, Steve saying Bucky could just get a job on a construction site, or stacking shelves somewhere, anything. But Bucky knew that for someone like him – no skills, no qualifications – working on the rigs he could get somewhere. Maybe eventually get a qualification paid for, study part time.

But he could offset his shifts. Hydroil wouldn’t care, and he could just not say anything to SSR.

‘Bucky?’ Steve asked. ‘Bucky it’s okay. Maybe in a few years we can save up a bit, you’ll get a promotion.’ Steve touched his knee gently.

Bucky took a deep breath and lifted his head.

‘I think we can do it Steve.’

Steve raised a doubtful eyebrow.

‘No, really, I’ve been doing the sums. The insurance does cover a lot of the stay, and the drugs, and more of the physio and psychologist than I thought. It doesn’t cover all of the radiation costs, and we’d have to pay $20,000 up front, but once we’ve done that my pay will cover it, if I take some extra shifts.’

Steve frowned. ‘But they don’t let you do that many extras do they?’

‘No, but,’ Bucky pressed his lips together, ‘if I fly back less often between shifts and stay with Gabe in Houston, we could save money on flights.’

Steve looked uncertain. ‘We already spend so much time apart Bucky.’

‘I know, and it will be hard, but it’s only for a year. And you’ll have all the great supports here, and you can always call me.’ Bucky took Steve’s hand. ‘Steve, I couldn’t bear it if we waited and then something happened….’

Bucky’s throat jammed up, and he stared at their hands linked together. Steve would hate this, hate what he was doing. He’d say Bucky was making unnecessary sacrifices, that Steve had lived this long and he would live a few more years yet. That Bucky shouldn’t be taking this choice from him.

Bucky could see their matching rings – just cheap sterling silver bands. They had promised in their vows to be honest and true to one another, Steve’s eyes burning fiercely as he made his vows to Bucky. ‘ _I will love you, I will share the secrets of my heart with you_.’

But what good was any of that if Steve was gone?

‘Steve, I promise, we can make it work.’ And Steve kissed him hard and wet on the lips, almost climbing into Bucky’s lap, then pulling away sobbing and laughing.

‘I really believe this is going to work, Bucky, I really do.’

They sat in front of Sharon and signed the forms together, and her smile seemed genuinely happy that they’d found a rich uncle or whatever to cover the costs.

Dr Erskine was ecstatic and it turned out he had even more bits of paper to shower onto Steve, which Bucky stuffed into his backpack.

On their way out a beautiful woman with brown curly hair waved at Steve from across the foyer. She was wearing a white lab coat and lace up brogues.

‘I hear you’ll be joining us Steven,’ she called brightly in a British accent. ‘I look forward to it.’

Steve blushed and waved back.

‘Gotta crush, Stevie?’ Bucky teased as they stepped outside. ‘Who was that.’

‘Peggy – Dr Carter. She’s a PhD student with Dr Erskine.’ Steve was staring furiously at the ground, which meant he totally had a crush.

‘But she’s already a doctor?’

‘Yeah, she’s already a medical doctor but she’s doing a research PhD.’

‘So she’ll be Doctor Doctor?’ Bucky asked casually.

Steve glared at him, and Bucky started singing softly, ‘ _I’ve gotta bad case of lovin’ you…._ ’ Steve punched him in the shoulder and Bucky laughed and pulled him close, kissing him on the head.

Normally Steve didn’t let him do that, but it was a good day. A really good day.

\-----

Later that evening, sitting on the ouch with Steve curled into his side, Bucky stopped feeling so good. His mind was full of numbers, trying to work out exactly how much work he’d need to do at the rig in Texas, how often he could come home.

His chest ached just thinking of a year with so little Steve, thinking of Steve going off to the clinic alone, with his shoulders hitched up and his determined face on. Bucky looked down at him now, staring at the movie they were watching, wearing one of Bucky’s hoodies and a pair of sweatpants.

‘Stop thinking Bucky,’ Steve flashed him a stern look. Bucky dipped his head and ran a hand across his face.

Steve paused the TV and sat up straight. Bucky’s heart pounded a little. He didn’t deserve this, not today.

But Steve was looking at him affectionately.

‘Get down on the floor Bucky.’

Bucky slid off the couch onto his knees, head down and hands on his thighs. His heart was pounding, but his head was already clearing, cocooned in the safety of Steve’s voice.

‘Come over here.’ Bucky shuffled around until he was between Steve’s thighs. Steve’s bare thighs. He had pulled the sweatpants off and was sitting, legs splayed, in only Bucky’s hoodie.

Bucky sighed a little as Steve tugged on his hair and rested Bucky’s cheek against the soft, pale inside of his thigh.

‘Big day, hey Bucky?’

‘Mmmhmm,’ Bucky nodded, squeezing his eyes shut.

‘I know just what you need,’ Steve whispered softly, stroking Bucky’s hair with his long fingers. Bucky’s breath was calmer now, his muscles melting at the touch of Steve’s skin on his cheeks, fingernails on his scalp.

Then Steve closed his fist around a handful of Bucky’s hair and dragged his heavy head up to Steve’s crotch, the sharp stinking in his scalp drawing tears from the corner of Bucky’s eyes, so warm and so sweet.

‘Open your mouth up Bucky,’ Steve pulled Bucky’s head up and Bucky let his draw drop, moaning in his throat as Steve guided his soft cock into Bucky’s mouth.

‘That’s it,’ Steve said encouragingly, ‘my good little slut. You love having my cock in your mouth, don’t you baby.’ Bucky nodded, his lips closing around the base of Steve’s cock, which rested warm on Bucky’s tongue.

‘Just rest there, sweetheart, just rest there.’ Steve pressed play on the movie again, and Bucky stayed, saliva gathering in his mouth, breath hitching in his nose, tears tracing an unceasing path down his cheeks, gathering with the drool in the corners of his mouth and running down his neck.

Steve barely moved, his hand resting on Bucky’s head as a gentle pressure.

Time became a space, and the space was full of warmth, of Steve, of love.

When Steve shifted finally, gently pulling Bucky’s head up, Bucky whimpered softly.

‘Oh Bucky.’ Steve pulled a cloth out of his pocket and wiped Bucky’s face down, getting him to blow his nose.

Bucky realised he was achingly hard and whined again, shifting his legs and feeling pins and needles spark in his feet.

‘You want something, baby?’ Steve asked with a smirk and Bucky glared at him. Steve _knew_ what he wanted.

‘Take your top off Bucky.’

Bucky pulled his t-shirt and his hoodie off over his head and threw them to the side, the languid warmth in his limbs transforming into hot desire. He was panting, his numb lips parted, still full of the musky taste of Steve.

Steve, who was staring at him with eyes as blue and burning as the desert sky, assessing, deciding what to do.

‘And your pants.’

Bucky scrambled clumsily, his legs stiff and uncoordinated, managing to gracelessly pull of his sweatpants and his boxer briefs, Steve’s eyebrows arched in amusement.

‘ _Steve,_ ’ Bucky complained, or begged, as he wiggled on the floor, cheeks flushed with arousal and embarrassment.

He got back up on his knees, his cock bobbing red and leaking from the tip. He wanted Steve to touch him so badly, still sitting there graceful and poised, his legs parted and his own cock half hard, nestled in a thatch of golden brown hair.

‘Turn around, head down and that pretty ass in the air.’

Bucky obeyed, glad to be freshly showered. He had spread his cheeks in the mirror and looked at his pink hole, touched his shaved rim and thought of Steve.

‘Look at that, sweetheart, you tidied up for me.’ Steve squeezed his cheeks hard and ran a thumb up his taint, over his hole.

‘Yes Steve.’ Bucky flushed again, pleased Steve had noticed.

‘Well, since you did such a good job, I have a special treat for you tonight.’

Steve let go for a moment, reaching and rummaging in the drawers bedside the couch. Bucky hummed happily, knowing that was where Steve stashed the lube. One of the many places.

Steve wiggled forward on the couch, and Bucky could feel the inside of Steve’s knees against his hips. He loved this so much. He couldn’t see Steve, didn’t need to. He trusted him completely to gaze only with wonder over Bucky’s body, to do exactly what Bucky needed, to stop whenever Bucky needed.

In the early days, there had been a number of safe word incidents, for both of them, as they learnt their limits together. But these days Steve had the measure of Bucky most of the time. Knew when he needed to get out of his head and fall apart in Steve’s hands.

Now Steve was dribbling lube down Bucky’s crack, making him giggle at the cold touch of it running down the back of his balls and wiggle a little. Steve have him a quick stinging slap on his right thigh and Bucky stilled, but Bucky knew that wasn’t the main game tonight.

Finally Steve ran a lubed finger around Bucky’s rim, making him shudder and moan. Then Steve’s finger was pushing into him, fucking in to the knuckle, then making little circles. Bucky was so ready for this, nearing down on Steve’s finger.

‘Already gagging for more, baby,’ Steve said wryly, drawing the finger out and after a brief pause pushing back in with two, coated in more lube. Bucky groaned throatily, suddenly realising where Steve was going with this.

‘That’s right, Bucky, you’ve been so good for me today, I’m gonna do something special for you.’ Steve pumped his fingers, then again made slow circles, tugging at Bucky’s rim.

The brief pause again – Bucky held his breath in anticipation of the burn as Steve thrust in with three, slower this time, waiting as Bucky spasmed and relaxed around him, breath coming in little huffs.

‘That’s right, pace yourself, open up for me.’ Steve moved in and out with a twisting motion, making Bucky sob and squirm, then curled his fingers and Bucky shouted, the sudden spark along his nerves shooting through his belly and his cock.

‘ _Steve_ ,’ he sobbed, as Steve pushed into his prostate again and again. Bucky could feel himself slipping, his body relaxing, opening for Steve.

‘There we go,’ Steve murmured, pulling out. Bucky could feel himself opened up, feel Steve’s eyes on him as he drizzled more cool lube into Bucky. God what must he look like, his hole gaping open and twitching, shining with lube. Bucky whined and squeezed his eyes shut, hot with embarrassment.

And there were four fingers pressing in, filling him. It did burn a little around his rim, he could feel his body trembling around Steve, then opening that little bit more as Steve pushed his thumb in as well.

Bucky sobbed throatily, losing it as Steve started, gently at first, pushing back and forth, working his hand in further, filling Bucky, other hand stroking up and down his back, murmuring soft words Bucky couldn’t even understand any more, his whole world reduced down to the burn in his ass, the feel of Steve’s hand rubbing his stretched walls, sensation running through his whole body radiating from that centre.

Then Steve was thrusting deeper and faster, the squelch of lube and his own broken moans filling Bucky’s ears in harmony with Steve’s murmured endearments.

Bucky let out a sobbing cry as Steve’s whole hand pushed inside, his rim closing around Steve’s wrist, his whole body shaking.

‘That’s my Bucky, taking it so well, taking it so well for me.’ Steve was leaning over him, still wearing the sweatshirt, sucking kisses on Bucky’s shoulder, the soft press of his bare thighs against Bucky’s. Bucky was so full so full, no more space inside him, cock throbbing, skin dripping, eyes dripping. It hurt and it was everything, Steve was everything, hip cones shard and cool against his burning thighs.

He sobbed, surprised, as Steve pulled his hand out slowly, feeling his hole gaping open and twitching at the loss of Steve, even as his rim burned and the pain drew tears from his eyes.

Bucky could hear Steve’s breath coming short and shallow, and as Bucky collapsed down Steve guided him onto his back. And… oh. Steve was hard – his cock pale and slender but always surprisingly long, on the few occasions he managed to get fully erect.

‘Can you take me, Bucky?’ Steve croaked, his face and chest red, looking down on Bucky so ruined and sweaty as if he were the rarest gift.

‘Of course, Steve,’ Bucky’s voice was hoarse too, as he drew his legs up with his arms, his cock leaking against his belly.

And Steve leaned over Bucky, resting his hands on Bucky’s thighs, lining the tip of his cock against Bucky’s already open hole, and pushed in with a single thrust. They both moaned together, Bucky watching Steve’s face with wonder, the rare play of this kind of pleasure across his face, eyelashes fluttering and pink lips parted, that little line between his eyebrows.

‘Come on Bucky, come on my cock.’ And Bucky shifted his hips up a little, so Steve was hitting his prostate, fucking in and out so smoothly of Bucky’s wet, wanton ass. Steve shifted so Bucky’s cock was trapped between their bellies, Steve’s breath coming quick and harsh in his chest.

All it took was a few rough thrusts of Bucky’s cock against the flat of Steve’s stomach and he was coming, violent and intense, coating them both as his hole twitched around Steve, who moaned and came in Bucky, collapsing down on his chest and coughing.

Bucky rubbed his back and stroked his hair as his coughs subsided and his breath calmed.

Then Steve shifted his softening cock and they both giggled as come and lube dribbled out over both of them.

They lay for a long time, hearts pounding. It was always a little overwhelming when they fucked. Normally Steve would be looking after Bucky, but for these minutes after Bucky would feel how delicate Steve’s frame was, the shortness of his breath, the flutter of his heart, and feel he should be caring for Steve.

But, as always, they managed to untangle themselves eventually and squeeze into their shower cubicle, shampooing one another's hair and sluicing warm water across soft skin.

Later, when they lay in bed together, Steve curled against Bucky’s back, Bucky thought that he shouldn’t have lied to Steve. They should have come home together, and talked about it, and run through boring excel spreadsheets together.

But he had. And tomorrow he would text Rumlow, and when he flew down for work next week he would arrange to visit Hydroil. This year would be long, and he already felt the exhaustion in his bones. But at the end of it Steve would be healthy, and happy, and it would be worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really do love comments, but appreciate that it's early days, and not everyone is into that. I also love Kudos and All Readers. The whole joy of this is your story goes out into the world without needing to be mediated by the market.


	3. Everything, it comes tumbling down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spring and Summer roll around, and in the heat things start to get hard for Steve and Bucky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The angst is starting to set in now folks. Note homophobic slurs and sexual harassment in this chapter, with some self-blaming from Bucky. Steve's treatment starts so there's some discussion of pain. A few more spoilery warnings at the end of the chapter relating to the sex scene.

_But when I crawl into your arms  
Everything, it comes tumbling down._

_James finds himself close the gallery again, standing across the street huddled in a doorway._

_He’s not who he was, back then, and when he thins back on how young and stupid he was, his stomach still goes tight; the sick feeling fresh as it was all those years ago._

_His shoulder aches. Tony has been testing the new arm, and it’s exhausting. The pain takes him back too, to when the injury was fresh – in his arm and in his heart._

_He tells himself that’s why he’s here._

_Finally it happens, the thing he was pretending he wasn’t waiting for._

_Steve steps out of the gallery front in a thigh length, cornflour blue coat that must really bring out his eyes; blond hair longer and ruffled by the cold wind; and a golden brown beard he never used to be able to grow. He looks so good Bucky almost cries out from the fresh blossoming of old desires he had assumed (told himself) were long dead._

_Steve wraps a knitted pink and purple scarf around his neck and shoves his hands in his pockets and walks away from the gallery, staring at the ground._

_When he’s out of sight down the street, James slips across and into the gallery._

_Did he seem sad? James wonders as he pushes the door. That thought, too, brings a fresh bloom in his chest – this time of sorrows he’s never been able to pretend were dead._

_\-----_

**Spring**

The heat was scorching, even though was only May. Bucky was streaming with sweat in his overalls, gloves and hard hart. They were adding pipe to the drill string, and Bucky was operating the lead tong. They’d been at it all day, and Brock was the driller in charge today. He’d already fucked up the draw works twice today, lowering the travelling block too early and too fast. Bucky just wanted the shift to be over.

He whole body ached from opening and closing the tongs, his throat from trying to shout at Brock. It was so fucking irritating to have to listen to a guy doing a job Bucky could and did do better.

Finally Sitwell, the tool pusher in charge, called a break and Bucky tried to take a moment just to enjoy the cold water in his throat, try to shut out the clanging and grinding of machinery that he heard now even in his sleep. He was so fucking tired.

Of course he thought of Steve then, who was in the clinic this week, on another round of radiation treatment. He had sounded so tired on the phone the other night. Steve’s voice had been thin and tight.

They couldn’t afford smart phones – couldn’t see each other. And Bucky had been relieved, because it meant he didn’t need to worry too much about finding an innocuous back drop which could possibly be the spare room at Gabe’s place. Instead he could just lie curled on his bed listening to Steve talk.

‘You got people there taking care of you Stevie?’ Bucky asked hoarsely.

‘Of course Buck,’ Steve had replied, strained. ‘The nurses are great, and Peggy and Sam have been visiting me a lot.’

Bucky felt a twinge of jealousy at the thought of other people taking care of Steve – _his_ job.

‘I wish you were here though Buck, I really do.’ Steve’s voice wavered a little and Bucky gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut.

‘I wish I was with you too, Steve.’ Bucky struggled not to sound like he was about to cry, but failed.

‘Oh sugar, it’s okay,’ Steve murmured, ‘I know you’re doing this for us. So good, sweetheart, you’re so good for me.’

And then Bucky did cry, because Steve shouldn’t be worrying about him, and Bucky was doing this for them, for Steve, but what he was doing was lying, and he wasn’t sure it was something Steve could forgive.

‘Hey princess.’ Bucky was jolted out of his reverie by a hard slap on his ass.

‘Fuck off, Brock,’ he said tiredly, sweat crawling on his skin, bile rising in his throat.

‘Whatever, you faggots love it, amiright?’ Brock laughed loud and ugly.

Bucky just walked away, hot and angry and sick with Brock, with himself.

‘ _Not long now, baby, not long now_ ,’ Steve whispered in his ear.

Bucky went straight from the airport to the clinic. He only had a small backpack with him – most of his stuff was at Gabe’s. He’d had to bring Gabe in on the two jobs plan, because his cover was spending his off weeks in Gabe’s spare room.

Gabe had looked at him long and hard and said ‘ _This is a terrible idea Barnes_ ’ – but that was it. He had Bucky’s back.

Bucky asked after Steve at the reception, and the man of the desk directed Bucky to a lift, down a corridor decorated with large paintings of flowers and landscapes, to room number 42.

Bucky breathed deep as he pushed the door open with a shaking hand, aching for Steve in his very bones.

There he was, so small even in the narrow hospital bed, propped up on white pillows under crisp sheets, the air of the room cool, face already lighting up as the door opened.

‘Steve,’ Bucky made it to the bedside in a few quick strides as Steve struggled further up in the bed, opening his arms up for Bucky to fit into them. Bucky held Steve lightly but firmly, like he had been practicing for years, feeling Steve’s sharp shoulder blades, pressing his lips into Steve’s neck, across his flushed and heated cheeks, kissing his soft warm mouth breathing Bucky’s name. They were kissing wild and messy, tongues and teeth and the taste of tears, hands all over the other searching for changes, for wounds, repeating each other’s name like a litany.

‘Come in here,’ Steve demanded, tugging Bucky up onto the bed. Bucky slid off his shoes and complied, shuddering gently as Steve wrapped around Bucky and buried his face in Bucky’s chest.

‘You’re so warm Stevie,’ Bucky whispered. ‘Do you have a fever? Are you okay?’

‘No and no,’ Steve laughed wetly. ‘It’s not a fever – it’s a side effect of the treatment. Everything is running faster, more – releases energy as heat.’ Steve pulled away and stared with liquid eyes – blue and hot, but so unlike the desert sky.

‘But it hurts, Bucky, it hurts a lot.’

Bucky held Steve’s face in his hands and kissed him across his broad forehead, on his temples, one eye then the other, the tip of his nose, then his lips – gently, reverently. Steve held tightly on Bucky’s forearms, trembling at the ministration Bucky had been delivering ever since Steve had a fever the summer they were eleven – long before they were lovers.

‘I’m so sorry I wasn’t here for you Steve.’ Bucky whispered.

‘You are now,’ Steve curled into Bucky’s chest and Bucky rocked him gently, singing the Irish ballads Sarah Rogers had loved so much into Steve’s ear.

There was a knock on the door, and a throat clearing, and Steve and Bucky both turned. The woman, Peggy, who had said hello to Steve that first day they were here, was standing in the doorway in her white coat and smart shoes.

Steve greeted her in a warm voice, that made a snake in Bucky’s chest give a jealous rustle. It was new to him, this feeling. He had never been jealous of anyone before. Steve often had crushes, people who would make him blush and stammer a little, and Bucky had never minded. Steve just had a big heart, and there was never any question about his love for Bucky.

But now Peggy was _here_ – here while Bucky was away, could take care of Steve, check in on him, while Bucky couldn’t even see his face.

‘Hello, you must be Bucky,’ Peggy gave a half smile, but her dark eyes narrowed a little at Bucky. ‘It’s nice to finally meet you.’

‘Peg has been great, Bucky,’ Steve said, smiling. ‘She comes and sees me every day, and she’s helping Dr Erskine out with the treatment.’

Peggy walked over to the bed, smiling fondly at Steve. ‘It has been hard for Steve, but we’ve been making sure he’s not lonely.’

Bucky tensed a little at that, the sickness rising in his belly again. He knew that was directed at him.

But Steve gave Bucky’s arm a little squeeze.

‘Well, since you’ve got your special visitor, I won’t stay today, but I’ll see you tomorrow. How long are you here for Bucky?’ She arched an eyebrow at him.

‘Just a week,’ mumbled Bucky, like he needed reminding about how inadequate that time was when he was so starved of Steve’s presence.

‘The best week ever,’ Steve said smiling, stroking Bucky’s hair.

Peggy tilted her head and nodded, and left the room, closing the door softly.

‘It didn’t matter that I’m in the bed?’ Bucky asked.

Steve laughed. ‘You’re not really meant to be, but Peggy won’t tell. No one’s going to get in the way of me getting a cuddle tonight.’ He buried his head into Bucky’s shoulder, squirming to fit himself perfectly into Bucky’s arms.

Bucky carefully hooked his leg over Steve, and pulled him in closer. They were silent, but there was nothing to say that wasn’t better said by their skin pressing together, the heat of their bodies, the beating of their hearts – Steve’s always rapid and erratic, Bucky’s slow and steady.

Often when he thought back on that terrible year, Bucky would think that was the last time they were really happy together, like they had been, fitting together perfectly and comfortably, hearts making a perfect melody known only to themselves.

\-----

**Summer**

The air was wet and hot, making the darkness feel even thicker. Bucky could hear the ocean slapping and heaving, the creaking of metal and machines, distant voices.

He was hardly ever alone anymore – two weeks out on the rig, damp and heavy and hot, the two weeks at Hyrdroil, parched and heavy and hot. A few day at Gabe’s here and there.

His skin feel flayed by the elements – the salt wind and the sand wind, the sun glaring off the waves or pulsing in the desert sky. His hands were so calloused he barely needed gloves anymore. His back hurt all the time, but he liked it, like he was sharing some part of Steve’s pain.

But the worst had become the people. On shift all day, eating together in the evenings. Games of cards, and when he was at Hydroil the constant drinking. At first he’d managed to hold out, but the day wore on and it was just easier to say yes when Brock handed him a beer, smile when Brock sucked on the bottle neck and then leered – _You like that Barnes, that how you like it, that how you give it?_ Bucky felt a wash of shame as he remembered himself replying _I give it better than that Brock_.

Brock roared with laughter and slapped Bucky’s shoulder, so please to have him in on the joke. _Maybe you’ll have to show me sometime, hey? The women out here aren’t too willing_. And Bucky had just laughed and shaken his head, throwing back the beer. It was just easier, easier to drink, to go along with Brock, tolerate the ass slaps and the ‘joking’ _faggot_ _poofter homo_.

So the rig was better. The guys were nicer, they left him alone in the evenings if he wanted to stand outside and stare at the soupy darkness.

Bucky pulled the hip flask out of his pocket and took a swig. He hadn’t managed to get hold of Steve lately. He was out of the clinic and into the day program.

 _It’s working real well Bucky. I’m already feeling better. It’s funny, I’ve actually been growing. Remember how you were always complaining about growing pains when you were fifteen – it’s kind like that for me now_. He’d laughed, melodiously, and Bucky tried to remember that sound now, block out the ocean, the shifting rig.

But he couldn’t. He took another deep sip on the flask, feeling the bourbon burn its way down and settle warm with the sickness in his stomach.

_It’s okay, Peggy and Sam are spending lots of time with me. Sam’s a great physio. I’m getting so much stronger. I even went for a run the other day. Actually, I’ve gotta run now – we’re going to go out for drinks. Well, I’m still on soda water._

Bucky tucked the flask away. Hopefully that would be enough to get him to sleep.

Not long now, not long. But Steve hadn’t said it this time, hadn’t called him baby.

\-----

Bucky turned the key in the apartment lock and stepped inside. He knew straight away it was empty. It was so small, he could always hear the slight sounds of Steve, even when he was in the studio or the bedroom.

The table was empty, where Steve always sat on the nights Bucky came home.

It was hot and stuffy inside, New York sweltering a little in the August heat. Bucky couldn’t remember being cold.

He dumped his bag and walked dully across the room. He slumped on the couch and pulled out his phone, and sure enough there was a text.

_srry buck still out u cld meet us at Lucy’s_

Us. Bucky didn’t even really know who _us_ was. Peggy and Sam? Who else? Other patients? Other workers?

_home already c u later_

Bucky put the phone aside, put his head in his hands. There wouldn’t be any booze in the house – Steve didn’t drink, and Bucky never drank when Steve was around.

In the bathroom cabinet Bucky found some Valium and popped a couple, then settled on the couch in front of the TV, watching the patterns and lights play across the screen, letting the emptiness fill him. He pulled an old crocheted blanket Sarah had made over himself, despite the heat. It reminded him of when he and Steve were kids and they would curl up under the rug on the couch for movie nights. Sarah would make them popcorn, and Steve would always fall asleep on Bucky’s shoulder. He wouldn’t dare move.

Steve’s second to last text had been a bit longer, more formal.

_Bucky before you come home you should know I’m looking quite different. I’m quite a lot taller, as tall as you, and I’ve got stronger. Just don’t be shocked_

_I’ll always love you Steve, whatever you look like_

Steve hadn’t replied.

Around midnight, there was a fumbling at the door, and Bucky pulled himself up to rest against the armrest, arranging the blanket over his knees. Everything felt distant – the sounds at the door, the TV, the meeting with Steve.

Steve stumbled through the door and Bucky watched from a distant place. He was so much taller, all long limbs still surprised at themselves. The shock of blond hair was still the same – askew as ever. But he wasn’t just tall – there was muscle starting to weigh on his frame, like a boy on the verge of adulthood.

Then he looked across at Bucky with those blue eyes under heavy dark lashes – _Steve_ , unsure and hesitant, face pulled into a slight frown and pink lips pouting, already on the defensive.

Bucky felt like he was still in the thick, humid air of the Gulf, heavy and languid. He felt too heavy to speak.

‘Bucky?’ Steve asked. ‘Are you okay.’

Steve approached him, the frown deepening.

‘Steve,’ Bucky finally managed to breath, throwing off the blanket clumsily and getting to his feet.

How strange was this moment? Staring straight into Steve’s eyes, not having to dip his head. Reaching out.

‘Is it okay?’ Steve asked. ‘Am I okay?’

‘Of course, Steve, of course,’ Bucky responded, mouth like glue, pulling Steve into an embrace. Their cheeks rested together, and Bucky could hear Steve’s breath quick against his ear.

‘Steve, is that booze I smell?’ Bucky said, trying to keep his tone light and teasing.

Steve pulled away, laughing. ‘Yes, but don’t tell Dr Erskine. I’m still not really allowed. But it was Sam’s birthday and I had one beer. I think it may have made me a little tipsy.’

‘I’m a bit sad your first drink wasn’t with me.’ Bucky knew it sounded too bitter, too heavy.

‘Oh Bucky,’ and there was the frown again. Steve pulled his hands away and walked back over to the table. ‘I can’t help it if you’re not here. I can’t just wait for you for everything.’

Bucky watched Steve fiddle with some papers on the table, mouth set into a hard line.

‘Sorry,’ Bucky said. ‘I’m just tired. Why don’t we head to bed?’

‘Sure.’ Steve neatened the pile of sketches and went into the kitchen. Bucky heard him turning the tap and filling a glass of water.

He went over to the table. He hadn’t looked at the sketches when he arrived home. He glanced at the top page – a charcoal sketch of a small figure in a bed, a shadow of a huge figure thrown from the foot of the bed up the wall, towering over him. In the centre of the picture a window giving out to the distant city.

The silence held between them until they got into bed and turned out the lights.

Bucky lay on his side, exhausted, drugged body sinking through the bed. He felt a tentative hand on his shoulder, and the press of Steve’s chest against his back.

Bucky squeezed Steve’s hand and felt him settle against him, so different from his tiny form latched onto Bucky, holding fast. Steve’s larger hand was more hesitant, the rhythm of his heart slower and more settled. Only his breath was fast.

But the bare skin on Bucky’s arm still knew it was Steve, and Bucky drifted to sleep hot and full of sickness and sadness and desire.

\-----

The next morning Bucky woke to the sound of Steve in the kitchen and the smell of coffee. He stumbled out in his shorts, already warm and sticky.

‘Morning sleepyhead,’ Steve called as Bucky entered the kitchen.

‘Steve, what have you been doing?’ Bucky complained, staring at this new body clad in running shorts and a tank top. ‘Were you wearing sunscreen?’

Steve threw back his head and laughed, and Bucky purred a little at the sound, drinking the sound in like water from a cool mountain spring.

‘It was my morning to go for a run with Sam. We meet in Prospect Park.’

‘Well, my sunscreen comment definitely stands then.’ Bucky took the coffee Steve was offering and leaned on the bench.

‘You should really meet Sam sometime. He’s great.’

‘Sure thing.’ This morning it seemed like something Bucky could do – meet Sam, meet Steve’s new friends.

‘It looks like you could do with putting on some more sunscreen yourself,’ Steve pressed Bucky’s nose and Bucky swatted at his hand.

Bucky suddenly felt self-conscious about his shirtless torso – so pale in contrast to the deep brown of his face. He was already starting to look more weathered than he should at 24. His once lithe body was also starting to thicken with muscle – not the defined gym muscle Steve was developing, but the thick muscle of heavy labour.

It was the unspoken question hanging between them – whether they still fitted together like they had.

‘So, you need to fill me in on where your program is up to,’ Bucky said with false cheer. He put his coffee on the table and went to the bedroom to find a shirt.

The sketches it turned out were part of the treatment program. An art therapist cam to the clinic, and if Steve had gushed about Sam’s training regime, it was nothing to how he looked when he talked about Phil Coulson’s sessions.

‘It was really hard after the radiation treatment, being at home all day. But Phil really encouraged me to focus on my painting and sketching as a way of processing the pain and the emotions.’

Steve touched the sketch Bucky had looked at the other night.

‘What’s that about?’ Bucky asked.

‘I was afraid of what the new body meant, once I started to grow. Whether I would still be me. Whether that version of me would be better than the Steve Rogers I had been.’ Steve looked over at Bucky.

‘You’re still Steve,’ Bucky said, because he felt like he should.

Steve looked away again, saying nothing.

‘How’s Mrs Miller?’ Bucky asked.

\-----

Meeting Sam Wilson did not go well. At least from Bucky’s perspective.

Sam was a good-looking man with a gap in his front teeth, athletic and energetic and kind.

Bucky hated him. It turned out there was something that could get Bucky very, very jealous, and that was someone else who seemed like they could be Steve Rogers’ best friend.

They met in Prospect Park, all in their running gear. Bucky was pretty sure this was going to kill him. Despite all the heavy work, he hardly ever ran, and Sam’s legs looked like they got a lot of running action.

They started out three abreast at a slow jog, Steve and Sam bantering easily.

‘So when you gonna paint me like one of your French girls Steve, you’ve been working your way through the office.’

‘Sam, I’m not painting people naked. They’re sketches for my project.’

‘Sure Steve, I know how you art types are.’

Bucky was irritated. Steve hadn’t told him he was sketching people. Possibly because Bucky had asked him about Mrs Miller. Whatever.

It was Steve who started to speed them up, those longer legs eating up the pavement. Bucky felt slow and heavy.

‘Don’t get much training down south?’ Sam asked, picking up on Bucky’s heavy breathing.

‘It’s kinda hard to run on the deck of an oil rig.’

‘Good trails around Houston though – you must have a bit of spare time there.’

Bucky just shrugged, trying to keep pace.

‘Okay, sprints!’ Steve shouted gleefully and bounded ahead, Sam pumped his arms and legs and took off.

Bucky swore softly and pushed harder. Hadn’t he been on the track team in high school? Well, the cross-country team, which wasn’t so much about the sprinting.

After the run they went to get smoothies, and Bucky wound up squashed into the corner of a booth.

‘Can you move over a little, man.’ Bucky poked Sam’s thigh.

‘Sorry dude, no room,’ Sam sucked on his straw, manspreading like a pro.

\-----

Bucky was leaving tomorrow. He was trying not to think about that too much, or the fact that Steve and he had done nothing but cuddle and kiss a little in the fortnight he’d been home. Bucky was in his boxer briefs and a loose pink tank top, sitting directly in front a small table fan set up on the table.

Steve had gone out to get them some ice. They’d managed to use everything in the ice trays and they hadn’t refrozen yet.

Bucky peeled off the tank top and wiped the sweat off his body, moaning softly. He was so fucking hot.

‘Sweetheart.’ Steve’s voice was low and husky, but jolted through Bucky like an electric shock. He hadn’t heard the door open. He turned and his eyes met Steve’s, pupils dark and hungry.

Bucky felt his sweaty skin tingling under the weight of Steve’s regard, his cock starting to harden in his briefs, on display to Steve.

Steve slowly, deliberately closed the door, toeing off his runners. He was wearing a short, loose pair of purple shorts and a blue t-shirt damp with sweat.

He walked towards Bucky, eyes travelling over Bucky’s flushed skin, his stirring cock. Bucky licked his lips, heart pounding and breaths coming quickly.

Steve placed the bag down on the floor.

‘Getting a bit hot and bothered here, sugar.’ Steve ran a finger along Bucky’s mouth, down his neck, down through the sweat gathering in the dip of his breastbone. ‘Here all alone, getting hard, thinking about someone coming in here, seeing you spread out here like this, thinking about what they’d do to you.’

Bucky whined softly, gripping the sides of the chair.

‘Such a slut aren’t you honey.’ Steve pulled his hand away and Bucky whimpered, watching as Steve reached into the bag with both hands, fiddling around.

‘Shut your eyes,’ Steve ordered. ‘Keep hold of the chair.’

Bucky squeezed his eyes shut. He listed to rustling of plastic, licking his lips.

‘ _Oh!_ ’ Bucky cried at the cold touch of ice on his nipples. Steve rubbed the ice blocks against the sensitive nubs, sending tingles of pleasure through Bucky’s nerves. Then the ice moved down in two paths over the planes of his belly, melting quickly on his hot skin.

A pause. Steve’s fingers hooked into his briefs, pulling them down and off. Then cold ice again on his ankles, travelling up the inside of his calves, his thighs, his cock hardening fully, his legs falling open completely.

And then he cried out again as a fresh cube rubbed across his balls, painfully cold, moaning as Steve ran it along the soft underside of his cock.

‘ _Steve_ ,’ he pleaded, for what he didn’t know. His body was alive with being touched again like this. So many months of hurried jerking off in the shower, curling around his dick in his bunk at night, this last week with Steve so close but so far away.

He gripped the chair tightly, hips bucking a little.

‘So eager for it,’ Steve murmured, voice thick, running his cold wet hands along Bucky’s thighs.

‘Let go of the chair.’ Bucky did.

‘Stand up.’ Bucky stood, feeling his cock bobbing eager and wet.

Steve moved behind him, pressing against Bucky’s back so he could feel that Steve was still in his clothing.

Then Steve gripped Bucky’s hands together and pushed him down onto the table, trapping his cock against the rough wood, his head turned to the side and check pressing down.

Then more rustling and Bucky’s hole fluttered in anticipation.

‘Keep your hands like that.’ Steve’s words held him, as ever, like a vice. Bucky felt the tightness in his chest loosen. He was here, he was fine, Steve was taking control.

Steve used one hand to spread Bucky’s cheeks apart and ran an ice cube from his tailbone down his crack, pushing hard into his taint until Bucky shuddered and writhed, then cried out from the rub of the table on his dick.

‘Better keep still baby, you wouldn’t want to get splinters,’ Steve teased. Bucky’s cheeks heated and he squeezed his wrist harder.

Then another ice cube pressing against his tight hole, the burn of the cold and the burn of the stretch melting together into a liquid fire trickling down inside him. Steve teased a little at first, circling his hole, pressing a little.

Then pressing more, further, pushing it in. Bucky sobbed and cried out – _‘Steve, please, it hurts_.’

‘I know it does,’ Steve pushed the whole cube in and Bucky shuddered at the strange sensation. ‘I know you like it.’

Another pause as Steve pulled Bucky’s cheeks apart. Staring. He must be staring at Bucky’s pink hole clenching around the ice cube.

‘I know what will make you feel even better, Bucky.’ Steve rubbed a palm almost soothingly across Bucky’s ass, petting him.

Then _smack_ a blow from Steve’s open palm landed on his outer right ass cheek and Bucky screamed. Steve could never hit him than hard before, with his hand. Would use a cane sometimes – light and stinging.

But that, that was a smack that would have made a red mark bloom on his buttock. Bucky groaned at the thought. Wanted to see himself.

And _smack_ again, harder this time on the left, driving Bucky’s hips into the table, sending pain flooding through his cock.

Bucky gave a guttural groan, tears spring to his eyes.

‘Count them,’ Steve order hoarsely. Bucky could here Steve’s breath coming heavy and fast, feel the ice melting in his asshole, pain blooming through his lower half.

‘ _Three_ ,’ Bucky croaked as the next blow hit.

‘ _Four_.’ His cock was so hard, felt rubbed raw, his jaw ached where it pressed against the table. His whole body was on fire. Hot and _light_ like a feather.

‘ _Five_.’ He could feel himself floating, but full and close and present, not like with the booze or the pills.

‘ _Six_. _Seven. Eight_.’ There was just Steve’s hands landing on his skin. His skin on fire.

‘ _Nine_.’ That one landed lower, across the back of his balls. The pain was white now, cleaning him.

‘ _Ten_.’

Their heaving breath echoed through the apartment.

Bucky felt Steve’s hands on his shoulders turning him roughly onto his back. Steve was so _strong_ now, could move this lump of a body so easily, move him how he wanted. His voice, his hands, it was all the same, was all Steve. Bucky meant it now, understood it in his bones in a way he hadn’t when he said that, in a way he hadn’t through this awful awkward fortnight.

Bucky’s eyes were still squeezed close. He wanted to see Steve, but Steve hadn’t said to open them yet. Steve took Bucky’s hands and held his wrists down above his head, held him there so tightly he’d never fly away.

With his other hand Steve was bending Bucky’s legs up, leaning his weight onto them. A finger, cool with lube pressed into his hole, thrusting deep, then a second.

‘You can take it, can’t you,’ Steve breathed, voice strained.

Bucky nodded, eyes closed. He could take anything, be so good for Steve.

And Steve’s cock, oh fuck that was bigger too. Bucky had sort of noticed, but it was harder to tell when it was soft. This was bigger. Pressing into him. Bucky’s walls resisted, resisted, burning, then relaxed and Steve pushed in _hard_ with a single movement, buried deep inside Bucky, filling him.

Bucky could feel the tight grip around his wrists, Steve’s left hand pushing down on Bucky’s inner left knee, pushing it to his shoulder. Bucky was anchored.

Then Steve started fucking him, hard and fast, slamming into Bucky. It had never been like this before. Bucky’s ass was on fire, Steve was splitting him open. He could here Steve’s grunts, feel the sweat dripping onto his skin. He was floating, cock forgotten in the throbbing of his entire being.

Then Steve was growling, ‘Come for me Bucky,’ as he fucked on unrelenting, hitting Bucky’s prostate and sending lightning coursing through the fire of his body. Steve let go of his leg and reached down and squeezed Bucky’s cock so hard it hurt as he came, screaming as he shot over their sweat drenched bellies.

Steve was pulling his cock out and Bucky cried out again.

‘Open your eyes,’ Steve panted, and Bucky did. There was Steve golden and pink and lithe long muscles drenched with sweat, cock in his hand.

‘On your knees.’

Bucky slid like jelly to the floor, turning his face up to Steve and opening his mouth. With a few quick jerks Steve was coming over Bucky’s face, into his mouth, groaning and whispering, ‘So fucking beautiful.’

Bucky was crying, so happy to have pleased Steve, so happy.

Steve was wiping down his face, coaxing him to his feet, leading him into the shower.

The two of them couldn’t fit in the cubicle together any more, but Steve kept touching Bucky while he was in there, and only took a couple of minutes to rinse himself off under the cold water.

They fell into bed together, dinner and ice forgotten.

‘You okay, Steve?’ Bucky murmured, feeling the awkwardness returning, wanting to chase it off again. They were facing one another in the bed, evening light still filling the room.

‘Yeah Bucky, it’s my job to look after you now, remember.’

Bucky was drifting into sleep before he could stop it. He had to stop it. Had to find his way back.

It was dark when he woke, and Steve wasn’t in the bed.

Bucky stumbled out, naked into the living room, wincing a little. His ass was sore, both inside and out, the twinge half pleasurable, half speaking to his fear.

Steve was sitting at the table, head buried in his hands, sobbing silently, lit by the lights of the city streaming through the window.

‘Steve?’ Bucky asked, flicking the light switch.

Steve looked up, face falling further at the sight of Bucky.

‘What’s wrong?’ Bucky walked toward him, hands outstretched. Steve flinched away from him and Bucky stopped, drawing his arms back around himself.

‘I hurt you Bucky, I hurt you,’ Steve whispered.

‘Yeah Steve, that’s what we do. That’s what we _like_ to do,’ Bucky was confused, not understanding.

‘But _I_ hurt you. I hit you. With my hands. And I fucked you. I’ve never done it like that before.’ Steve was trembling, and Bucky wanted so bad to approach again, but the fear was winning now.

‘I like it Steve, I always like it. I didn’t safeword. It was fine, it was _great_.’

I felt connected to you again, Bucky thought. Didn’t you feel the same?

They stared at each other for a while, all their words lost in abysses created by months apart, by bodies grown unfamiliar.

‘Steve, please.’ It was all Bucky had.

‘Just give me a bit of time,’ Steve whispered. What could Bucky do but turn around.

Of course, they didn’t have any time. Bucky got up at 5 am and Steve watched him dress, eyes lingering on Bucky’s bruises. Bucky had imagined Steve kissing them gently, saying how pretty they looked, but instead Steve touched them gingerly, let Bucky cover them.

Maybe after a few days they could have found a way to get their skin to talk again – starting there had always been easiest for them.

But it was almost September and Bucky had to get back to work. The bills still arrived in the mail every month; still had to be paid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While the sex is fully consensual and enjoyed, afterwards Steve feels ashamed of hurting Bucky, because he's uncomfortable with his new body. Bucky and Steve don't deal with this super well.
> 
> Thank you to everyone for such lovely comments and kudos. I really love to hear what you think. You can also let me know if things don't work so well for you as we proceed on this journey, but I feel like at least some people are strapped in for the angst. I have to say the smut keeps catching me by surprise - there has been more than I expected.


	4. Your face has fallen sad now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things fall apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is long and SO ANGSTY. Pretty much everything hurts and nothing is beautiful. After this chapter there will be a Steve POV chapter and then maybe things will start to look up? Eventual happy ending is promised.
> 
> This chapter contains some non-consensual scenes with Bucky and Alexander Pierce - not sex but creepy sexual harassment and power play. Bucky blames himself and feels ashamed. Please see the end notes for more details. You can skip them by skipping to the next break every time Pierce appears.
> 
> There is also quite a lot of homophobic abuse directed at Bucky in this chapter, which he tolerates. It's all part of the rich tapestry of shitty times. If you are just here for the romantic angst, just skip all the sections related to Bucky's job, and know just that he feels pretty shit about himself, and this contributes to The Situation.
> 
> Also, I have updated the tags to reflect Bucky's excessive drinking. Let me know if you think I should tag or warn for anything else.
> 
> EDIT 29/09: There was a bit of a plot hiccup in this chapter originally which I have now fixed. Thanks very much to the commenters who pointed it out. I don't have a beta so it's all me!

_Your face has fallen sad now  
Now you know the time is nigh_

_The gallery is quiet. A young woman with red hair nods at him as he enters, but goes back to her laptop._

_James’ pulse is accelerated, his breath is loud in his ears. The first room is dominated by a large canvas – the one on the poster outside. On this huge canvas, though, the sorrow is writ so much larger. The figure in the foreground is precisely life sized – dimensions Bucky once new better than his own. How small Steve was when he huddled into a ball. In this painting, how distant the giant city._

_James’ heart clutches and he walks around the dividing wall that holds the canvas, reaching out for a flyer on a stand. He stares down at it, blinking._

The exhibition is an early-career retrospective look at Steve Rogers’ work. Coming to prominence early in the decade with his paintings exploring illness and chronic pain, Rogers has…

 _His eyes break off the words, skittering across the page_. _Early works never seen before… periods defined by joy… later more reflective works._

_He raises his head with effort and looks around the main room._

_A triptych._

_It was him._ Early works never seen before _– except by him, by Bucky (that name he never even called himself anymore, belonged to that boy who belonged to Steve, who gave him the name), in the afternoon light in Steve’s little studio._

 _Bucky naked, legs sprawled apart, so young, lips pink and parted, eyes teasing._ I loved him first (2005), _said the little square beside the painting._

 _In a singlet and jeans, facing away, head in his hands, shoulders red with sunburn and hands rough with work, in the background Steve’s mother’s quilt over a chair, the window through which there were just more walls. That terrible first year working at Hydroil, the joy of coming back to Steve on a cheap red eye flight, being meet with kisses that were all teeth and tears._ He went into the desert for me (2009).

 _On his knees, head bowed; hair hanging down but eyes looking up, sad and hungry; arms behind his back and ropes crisscrossing his torso, a collar around his neck. No, not arms, one arm behind his back, the other a stump_. He is lost to me now (and when we said goodbye I never told him that I loved him still) (2018).

_And oh, what a fool he was to think his heart was no longer broken._

_\-----_

**Autumn**

Bucky huddled at the back of one of the demountables, holding his phone in his hand. He wanted to call Steve, _needed_ to call Steve. But to say what? My boss that you don’t even know I’m working for is a creepy fucker and I don’t know what to do because I have to make the next payment on your treatment?

He hadn’t met the new boss for the first few months back on the job. Pierce was much more hands off than Schmidt, managing a number of rigs, and when he finally appeared it was in the distance in a light great suit. Brock went over to speak to him, and Sitwell the site’s bookkeeper.

So much better than Schmidt, Bucky thought, counting it as a win.

But today, today Pierce had set up in the management office – well airconditioned, nicely furnished – and had called Bucky in.

Pierce had smiled at him so smoothly, so grateful someone with Bucky’s experience was working for them, while not strictly regulation to work two jobs at once they were glad to have him, glad to be able to help him.

Bucky’s chest tightened as Pierce talked. Bucky had shucked off his overalls, but he was sweaty and filthy in a stained white tank top and blue canvas work pants, still in his heavy boots. Pierce had his jacket off, shirt sleeves rolled up, hair immaculate. He moved around the desk and leaned against it, Bucky still standing.

His stomach lurched. Pierce’s blue eyes looked at him knowingly – the play of power in their respective stances, the sting of humiliation, the hint of Bucky’s desperate need for money. _I know_ , Pierce was saying. There was a heavy gold wedding ring on his hand and his watch was probably worth Bucky’s salary for 4 months.

Pierce stood and wandered over to him.

‘Rumlow has talked about you a lot,’ Pierce smiled, seeming genuinely amused. ‘I think he likes you.’ Bucky gave an involuntary roll of the eyes, and Pierce laughed, sanding close enough he must feel the damp heat rolling off Bucky’s body.

‘He doesn’t really understand you, though, does he, _Jamie_?’ Bucky shuddered at the unwelcome, overfamiliar nickname. Pierce just looked more delighted, reaching a finger out and running it down Bucky’s torso. Bucky was so aware of his graceless, heavy muscles; Pierce’s delicate, refined form.

Bucky gritted his teeth – the cold blue eyes, the power play stirring uncomfortably in his gut – sickness and desire.

‘Hopefully one day we can meet when you’re cleaned up a bit,’ Pierce said, still with that smile on his face. ‘I think we might have some shared interests, you and I.’

Then Pierce stepped away and turned back to the desk, dismissing him. And Bucky turned and left, head bowed, feeling his hair clinging to his neck like unwelcome fingers.

‘Hey Buck,’ Steve answered, sounding surprised. ‘Is everything okay?’

Bucky looked at his watch. Fuck, it was afternoon, Steve was probably at the clinic for a session or classes or something.

‘Yeah,’ Bucky croaked, ‘just missin’ you is all.’

‘Thanks Bucky,’ Steve replied, sounding warm and relieved, voice like a balm to Bucky’s undeserving heart. ‘Look, if it’s nothing urgent I’ve got to go – got my art session with Coulson and I’m working on this new project, I’ll tell you about it when we talk properly.’

Bucky could hear voices in the background now, Steve, obviously re-entering a room. _Hey Steve_ a loud voice sounded and a muffled _in a minute_ from Steve.

‘That’s fine, Stevie, talk soon. Love you,’ Bucky said, leaning his head against the wall and closing his eyes.

‘Love you too Buck,’ Steve replied distractedly and the call cut off.

Fuck. Bucky needed a drink.

\-----

Bucky had never felt this way before, coming home. He was tired and his whole body ached for Steve. But he was afraid.

He was afraid because he had forgotten how Steve smelled. When he tried to conjure the memory his nostrils felt so coated with salt and sand they couldn’t tell him anything about the scent of Steve’s hair or his skin or the smell that lingered in the room after he was gone.

He was afraid because when Steve chattered to him on the phone about his project, this exhibition that the clinic was putting on at the end of the year, and Steve was going to have a whole room devoted to a sequence of paintings he was working on, Bucky couldn’t picture the painting in progress. He hadn’t seen any of the sketches, hadn’t been there to make a coffee when Steve came out of the studio scowling because nothing was working.

He was afraid because they hadn’t talked about what happened last time Bucky was there and did Steve even want to touch him anymore?

Bucky’s steps were heavy on the stairs. He hadn’t got a message from Steve. Would he even be home? Last time the apartment had been empty.

He turned the key in the lock and pushed the door open, his heart quaking when he saw Steve at the table, still shocked at how much taller he was. And not just that now. He was filling out, his muscles straining against his sweater.

Bucky dropped his bag and shut the door with a foot, meeting Steve’s blue eyes.

And yes, he looked different, had somehow become huge and muscular while Bucky was absent, but those eyes were pure Steve Rogers – _angry_ Steve Rogers.

‘Steve?’ Bucky asked hesitantly, stepping towards the table.

‘Bucky, I –' Steve’s voice was shaking, like it did when he was too mad to talk. His breath was quick, and in his clenched hands was a letter. A letter.

Steve took a ragged breath.

‘I opened this Bucky, because it was from the clinic. It was addressed to you, but I thought – oh it’s just the clinic, just _my treatment_ , so it should be fine for me to look at it.’

Bucky’s stomach lurched and bile rose in this throat. Of all the things he had feared, he had forgotten this one, somehow. Blocked it out.

‘Bucky,’ Steve’s voice was trembling, teetering on the knife edge between anger and grief, his eyes shining with tears. ‘You _lied_.’

And there it was.

‘Steve, it was for you,’ Bucky managed to say, tongue thick in his mouth.

‘But you didn’t _ask me_. What have you been doing? How have you been paying for this? I worked it out and even with overtime and the flights, we can’t afford this. But you’ve been paying the bills.’ Those big shoulders were hunching over, and Steve was a stranger to him, this big man with Steve’s pink lips and long eyelashes wet with tears.

‘Hydroil,’ Bucky croaked, ‘I went back to Hydroil.’

A flush sped up Steve’s cheeks and his hands clenched, crumpling the paper more.

‘I would have _never agreed_ to that Bucky, I would have never wanted you to go back to that place, especially not _for me_.’

Bucky was crying too now. He wished he could say _it’s not as bad now_ but that would just be more lies. It was worse now. It was Brock still with his rough slaps and his faggot jokes; but it was also Pierce in his smooth suits with his cold eyes that saw right into Bucky.

‘You might have died, Steve, you might have died before we had the money saved.’ That was it, that was the deal Bucky had done with himself when he made that snap decision in the clinic. To lie to Steve, who he had never lied to ever before, who he knew would never agree to Bucky going back to Hydroil.

‘You knew, you knew I’d never agreed,’ Steve said through clenched teeth, ‘otherwise you would have told me, asked me.’ When Steve met Bucky’s eyes again his face was full of an emotion Bucky had never witnessed there before.

‘You know me better than anyone, Bucky. You know how important it is to me to make my own choices, pay my own price.’ Betrayal. That was the look on Steve’s face. He wasn’t angry anymore, he was hurt and confused. He didn’t seem to know what to do with his long arms, he wide shoulders, curling in to make himself smaller.

Bucky reached out, a sob rising in his throat.

Steve flinched away and he shook his head.

‘I just can’t Bucky, not right now.’ Steve stood, pushing the chair back and walked to the bedroom and close the door. Closed it almost gently, carefully, like if he made a loud noise or pushed too hard everything might fall apart.

Bucky clutched his arms around his stomach, body wracked with silent, heaving sobs.

Steve didn’t come out of the bedroom that evening, and Bucky lay awake on the couch all night.

In two years' time he would lose his left arm, and the pain of that would pale before the pain of the night when Steve Rogers first started to slip away from him.

\-----

It didn’t end like that, though. They tried.

The next day they sat at the table and Bucky explained to Steve how much he was earning with his two jobs, how much the insurance covered, how much longer he would have to do this to cover the full course of treatment.

He was still unbalanced by how big Steve was now. He ached to chart the topography of Steve’s changed form, to find the old scars and markings to write a new map over the old.

But instead Steve remained distant, and only more so because he looked so different. All Bucky’s markers were thrown off.

And he couldn’t bring himself to talk to Steve about Pierce. About the invitations to the office, the veiled threats, the touches which were becoming more frequent. But not rushed. No, Pierce seemed to think he had all the time in the world.

Bucky felt ashamed; felt he had brought this on himself. Surely Steve would just be even angrier with him if he knew about Pierce. And nothing had really happened. Nothing bad had happened to justify the gnawing fear Bucky felt in his stomach all the time, like a sharp-toothed parasite eating him from inside.

And how could they talk about other things? Like what happened when they fucked last time in summer? Like the joy that sprung to Steve’s face when he talked about Peggy and how kind she had been, how much she helped Steve out when the pain was really bad.

‘The pain was really bad?’ Bucky asked with a frown. ‘For how long?’

And Steve waved that away with a hand. _You weren’t here Bucky_ , that hand said. Steve had always guarded his pain closely, only conceding the need for comfort when it became too much and you were too close for him to deny the lines it was etching on his face.

You weren’t here.

But they tried. Talked it through.

‘I understand you did it for me, Bucky,’ Steve whispered. ‘Don’t think that I don’t understand that you did it because you love me.’

Steve gazed down at his hands, fingers still long and delicate, palms a little broader now. He said he had to relearn to hold a pencil, a brush, that he was working on bigger canvases now to accommodate the change. Canvases he couldn’t keep here, so Bucky couldn’t see what he was working on.

‘And I’m mad Buck, but I still love you too, don’t doubt that.’ Steve gave him a watery smile, somehow slightly more tender, gentle, now that he was managing a larger presence in the world. ‘I’m just hurt that you did something that you must have known I would hate.’

And that bit at Bucky, fed the parasite a little more.

But after three days Steve leaned into him a little, and both of them shuddered with relief. Their bodies didn’t understand that they were fighting; still hungered for the other.

Steve went out a bit. Went to the clinic for sessions with Sam. _He’s working you hard Stevie – look at the muscles on you_ , Bucky teased, both of them a little uncomfortable. He went to work on his paintings. _You’ll be back for the show? In December?_

They slept together, curled up in the bed, Steve finally growing into his big spoon role and enfolding Bucky from behind. That was the happiest moment of every day – waking with Steve curled warm against his back, hand resting on Bucky’s hips or across his belly. Before Bucky remembered.

\-----

**Winter**

There was a new kid at work, a roustabout. He was from bumfuck nowhere Texas, could barely read. Happy to be making money for the first time in his life.

Brock had, of course, taken him under his wing, which largely seemed to involve humiliating the kid as much as possible. Jack Rollins his name was.

Of course he picked up on Brock’s constant _faggot poofter want this up your ass Barnes_.

So now it was constant. And Rollins would refuse to listen to Bucky’s instructions, _I don’t need advice from no fairy_. Brock at least had the good sense to know Bucky was good at his job. So Bucky spent most of his day shouting at Rollins and fixing his mistakes.

Then of course they would get drunk together – in one of the common areas on weeknights, or maybe drive 30 miles to a bar on a Saturday night. Bucky’s body felt heavy and sluggish most of the time.

When he did his shifts out on the rig in the Gulf, he would feel cleansed for a while by the smell of the ocean and the salt, playing poker with the crew, even if they did comment sometimes on how many beers he was putting away.

Gabe was the most concerned, though he seemed relieved when Bucky told him Steve knew now, so there was no chance Gabe would ever have to lie for him. Not that Steve had ever checked up on him – just accepted what Bucky said. That sat bitter in his stomach, like so many other things.

Pierce was around more, and Bucky sensed him working up to more. The other week he had asked Bucky into the office and got him to kneel on the floor, boots off, hands behind his back. Bucky had felt tears gathering in his eyes, and had known Pierce was enjoying it. Bucky shuddered at the touch of Pierce’s thumb wiping the wetness from his lashes.

Then Pierce had dismissed him, sitting at his desk working while Bucky fumbled his boots back on.

At least it was cooler now, as November rolled into December.

‘The stars look real nice,’ Bucky slurred, as they all tumbled out of the bar on the highway. Fucking Texas. But the stars looked really nice.

‘Steve would like them,’ Bucky mumbled to himself.

‘Steve, is that your _boyfriend_ ,’ Rollins pushed up into Bucky’s face, leering.

‘What are you fucking twelve,’ Bucky pushed him away irritably.

‘Bet his cock isn’t a big as mine, bet you’d fucking choke on mine,’ Rollins grabbed at his crotch, sneering, tongue hanging out.

Bucky climbed up into Brock’s pick up. ‘I wouldn’t choke on your dick if it was the last one in the world,’ he said, and Brock gave a roar of laughter. Rollins scowled, not understanding why his joke had fallen flat.

Bucky rested his head back, closing his eyes. Next week he was going home, flying in to see Steve’s exhibition.

Everything would be okay then, he told himself, trying to forget the stilted phone conversations, the text messages that sat unanswered for a couple of days. _Now’s not a great time Bucky. I’m out with Sam and Peggy. Just saw this now._

\-----

Bucky was running late. Worst fucking night for the flight to be delayed. Why the fuck was Chicago a major airport hub. It snowed there all the fucking time.

He caught a taxi from the airport. At least it wasn’t snowing here yet.

He dressed hurriedly in the apartment. Steve was already at the show. Bucky had sent him a series of messages, and just got an _OK_ back. It was a big night for Steve.

Bucky pulled on his one suit, wincing at the pinch of it around his belly (too many beers) and the stretch across his shoulders (too much heavy labour). When was the last time he’d worn this? Their wedding?

His hands froze for a moment holding his tie. He met his eyes in the mirror – reddened, exhausted, face a little puffy. The burgundy had looked so nice on him that day – his skin fresh and clean shaven, cheeks pink with happiness.

Steve had been so beautiful in his powder blue suit, tucked under Bucky’s arm. Bucky had kissed his hair and there, there was the memory, the smell of Steve’s hair and the feel of it soft on his lips.

No time for that now. Bucky’s hands finished the knot, straightened the collar of his black shirt. He ran a brush through his hair and pulled it into a bun at the nape of his neck.

He raced for the subway. There was no way he could afford another taxi. Not with Christmas coming, another monthly payment. His coat was a little threadbare and he shivered in the evening air. No stars here in the lights of the city. Maybe one day soon he and Steve could go to the desert together. But somewhere else. The Grand Canyon maybe.

The gallery was a fancy one on the lower East Side. Bucky stood at the door for a moment, fear rising at the sound of voices inside, the warm throb of a room full of people, a tasteful quartet playing in the background. Hadn’t he been good at this, once upon a time?

He pushed the door open and stepped inside. Someone asked for his name and he gave it, and a list was checked. His coat was whisked away and he was standing in the crowd, looking around.

This first room mostly seemed to be information about the clinic, the program. This was all really one big ad, Bucky thought bitterly, to suck more money out of helpless schmucks like them. A fucking devil’s bargain it was.

Bucky could see Sharon, smooth and immaculate and schmoozing in a little black dress. He pushed forward. Steve had his own room. It must be further in.

The first room was full of a range of paintings, drawings, sculptures. There was a lot of red and white in the colour schemes. A lot of pain.

Bucky winced. There were people standing around some of the works pointing and nodding thoughtfully. Steve and he had gone to a lot of these things at one stage, mostly for the free food and booze and to giggle at people – and occasionally to appreciate some art. That usually involved them standing in front of something and Steve explaining it enthusiastically to Bucky, who secretly thought Steve’s paintings were way better.

The second room was similar, though there were more big canvases. A door off to the right seemed to lead into a cinema room so Bucky forged straight ahead.

He could hear Steve laughing as he entered the room. His breath caught. The room was twice as big as the others, and full of people sparkling and clinking like champagne. And over in the distance Steve’s golden head was surrounded.

Bucky looked away, as if blinded by the sun. The room was filled with two huge triptychs on opposing walls.

A room filled with objects with no depth, everything strangely proportioned. Their table at home. The back-brace Steve wore for years. The chair Steve’s mother died in. At the centre of the room, in the heart of the painting, was a window, which itself took up half the canvas. Outside was a perfectly rendered scene of a section of Prospect Park in summer, full of joggers and families and sunshine. _Illness._

Bucky moved on. The next painting was a finely detailed body – distorted and flayed – like an Escher painting never making sense – skin and arteries and muscles joining and twisting. No eyes anywhere, just a mouth screaming. _Treatment._

 _You weren’t here_.

The next painting was like a balm – different shades of white and cream – a slash of crimson red like lips – blue like the sky – yellow like the sun in the far right corner. _Healing._

Bucky was crying a little, pressing his hand to his mouth.

 _You weren’t here_.

The next wall was another triptych.

 _I am born (thank you for loving me)._ A portrait of Sarah Rogers standing one hand on her hip, gazing out from the canvas. Her eyes were the same as Steve’s – gentle, furious, etched with pain. Her dress was a patchwork of details Bucky could lose himself in for hours. Each square a little story – wooden train Steve had that a boy at school had broken and Sarah had fixed, the mug she would always make Steve’s warm soy milk in, her uniform, her wedding ring, the rainbow scarf she knitted for Steve when he came out to her, her first aid kit decorated with dinosaurs. Bucky could almost feel her strong hands ruffling his hair, pressing an icepack to his black eye. _He’s trouble my Steve, isn’t he Bucky._ And looking closer he could see they were textured, a collage – pieces of fabric and string, bandages, a scrap of porcelain.

 _I am made (thank you for helping me)._ The second painting was a row of people at a table piled with food, all wearing white lab coats. Erskine was in the middle stomach round and eyes crinkling as he toasted with a glass. Bucky recognized Peggy from that day at the hospital, hair shining and lips red, holding a teapot and smiling warmly, eyes fixed beyond the canvas. Sam was staring happily at a piled plate of food, and a fourth figure, gentle and slender with har greying at the temples looked away to the side, hands resting on the table in front of him. Dr Banner perhaps? And finally, standing off to the side another man holding up a paint brush, painting a window into the canvas. Coulson, it must be Coulson.

 _I am still here (never thought I’d make it)_. The third painting was Steve. Steve big. Naked, like a Greek god, planes of muscles Bucky had felt pressed against his back but had never traced with his fingers, his mouth. Just standing, feet apart, arms at his side. His eyes just like Sarah’s. Still etched with pain. In a room in Brooklyn with windows where the afternoon light streams in. And in a chair in the corner, a smaller figure sits in shadow, naked too, ribs sharp and stomach hollow, looking with longing at the figure in front of him.

Bucky turned, breathing deep and fighting back the tears.

He was closer to Steve now, and could hear scraps of the conversation.

‘Such an original vision.’

‘Range of styles.’

‘The abstract piece.’

‘Use of materials.’

On either side of Steve, pressed close and beaming with pride were Sam and Peggy. Bucky could see how Sam nudged him, muttered in his ear and made Steve laugh, keeping him grounded. Sam looked smooth and sharp in a tailored white suit with a red shirt and a black tie. Peggy, looking stunning in a red dress with matching lipstick, would occasionally squeeze his arm, or draw someone away from Steve by engaging them and walking them off.

Steve was nervous and flushed, hair sticking up as he ran his hands through it. He obviously wouldn’t fit into his powder blue wedding suit anymore, and look at him, wrapped in a perfectly tailored blue paisley jacket with navy pants, white shirt and a red tie. They must have all coordinated outfits.

And right then he caught Bucky’s eyes and his face lit up a little more. _Oh_ , Bucky though, _oh I love him_.

Steve turned to Sam and said something, and Sam looked over at him with a wary smile. Bucky felt his ill-fitting suit, his ill-fitting self.

But Steve was pushing towards him, excising himself, glowing and smiling.

‘Bucky,’ he swept him up in his arms. ‘You made it.’

‘Of course,’ Bucky mumbled into Steve’s shoulder (his shoulder!). ‘Fucking Chicago.’

‘You missed the speeches and stuff,’ Steve said, ‘but that’s okay, they were boring anyway. Come and say hi to Sam and Peggy.’

Steve was dragging Bucky in his wake, and everyone wanted to talk to him.

‘Just love to hear about your experience.’

‘The pain.’

‘New body.’

‘What’s it like to be attractive after so many years of being plain?’

Bucky scowled at that. _He was always beautiful_.

Steve brushed them off politely, and they stared at Bucky – who’s this loser?

Then Sam was shaking his hand. ‘Nice to see you again.’ How much had he heard? That was a distrustful slant to his smile. He didn't look so happy to see him.

Peggy nodded at him, icy and hot at the same time. She didn’t like him.

 _You weren’t here_.

 _But I did it for you Steve, I went to the desert for you a second time_.

Steve held onto Bucky for a while, then was pulled off to meet some gallery owner and talk about a show. Talk to someone else about a commission. Tony Stark was here now being loud and offering to buy things for five times their listed price.

‘The money doesn’t go to the clinic, does it?’ Bucky asked Sam, who was still standing quietly beside him.

Sam snorted a little.

‘Some of it does. But some goes to the artist and some goes to a charity for kids with degenerative diseases.’ Sam shrugged. ‘It’s not great, but that’s how the system works here. Gotta fight bigger fights to change this,’ he gestured around at the champagne and the expensive clothes.

Bucky kind of liked him. It was a shame he obviously thought Bucky was a jerk who didn’t deserve Steve.

Bucky lurked all night, spending a lot of time tracing each section of Sarah’s dress, remembering the texture of those early years with Steve – random fights when Steve saw something unfair happening. A lot of abandoned animals given reluctantly away to shelters. Their secret route up onto the roof to watch the lights of the city and talk about all the things they were going to do.

Steve appeared at his elbow, and Bucky noticed the room had quietened.

‘Do you like them Bucky?’ Steve asked softly.

‘They’re beautiful Steve, so beautiful.’ Bucky squeezed his hand, staring hard at the canvas. _But where am I in all of this?_

‘We’re all going out for drinks now. You’ll come? I really want you to get to know everyone.’

Steve Rogers, eternal fucking optimist.

But Bucky came, and sat quietly squashed into the corner of a booth beside Steve, trying to take comfort in the warmth of his thigh.

‘So we haven’t seen much of you at the clinic, Bucky,’ Peggy said, leaning over the table. ‘Steve says you work a lot, down in Texas?’

Bucky could feel what was unsaid. Why weren’t you here for him? Is work more important than him? She could see how great Steve was, how much he was worth.

Bucky drank his bourbon and coke down and nodded.

‘Yeah, I work on oil rigs.’

‘Really?’ Peggy said, even though she must have known. ‘How interesting.’

How could you have anything in common with Steve? her eyes said. Bucky wanted to say – I love his paintings, we used to go to galleries together and eat free cheese and drink wine from a box and laugh and he taught me everything.

Instead he started on another drink that had appeared in front of him.

‘I sure hope your work situation improves soon,’ Sam said wriggling down next to Bucky when Steve left to go to the bathroom. Bucky could feel his cheap shirt sticking to his body. The room lurched around him. He thought of the clear air in the desert and the stars.

‘Steve’s really built a life here with you away,’ Sam continued.

Steve slid into the booth opposite, next to Peggy. There were other people around. Bucky couldn’t even remember who. Other people who’d been in the exhibition. Coulson, who seemed to think Steve was _outstanding, exceptional, best artist I’ve seen in this program_. He had given Bucky a long look and shaken his head a little.

Maybe Sam had said something else? He’d love to share it with someone special?

Like Peggy, maybe, who was smiling and laughing, some show they’d seen.

He’s built a life here.

\-----

The next morning Bucky woke with a mouth full of cotton. And he smelt terrible. Acrid after drinking sweat.

The side of the bed next to him was empty.

He rolled out of bed and walked out into the living room. He could hear Steve humming in the kitchen but he couldn’t smell coffee. He went into the bathroom and dropped his cotton pyjama pants, turning on the shower.

Under the shower jet he reviewed the patchy memories of the bar the night before. He hadn’t done anything stupid. Hadn’t said much at all in fact. Steve had glowed and Bucky had glowered. He must have just seemed like a surly thug to everyone. He could picture so many faces looking at him with that expression that said _why is Steve with him?_

Bucky looked at his hands. He had forgotten to put his ring back on in the chaos of getting from the airport to the show.

Had Steve noticed.

‘Hey Buck,’ Steve called through the door, ‘remember I said some of us were gong to brunch this morning?’

Fucking brunch.

Bucky didn’t remember at all.

‘I’m a bit hungover, I might give it a miss,’ Bucky called.

There was a brief silence.

‘Okay Bucky, I’ll see you later.’

Bucky stayed under the shower until he heard Steve leaving, even though the water ran cold.

He stepped shivering out onto the cold tiles and stared at himself in the mirror.

His once lithe body was solid now, not sculpted like Steve’s, like that god glowing from that canvas. There was a paunch developing over his abs, his chest and arms were thick, his thighs fleshy and wrapped with muscles like heavy ropes.

Who was this?

He dried himself off roughly until his skin was red.

\-----

That night they ate together in the apartment. Bucky had cooked bolognese – slow cooked over the whole day so the apartment smelt rich and warm.

It was awkward. They discussed the show, Steve telling him about the opportunities offered, maybe a show next year.

Bucky wanted to ask him about the paintings, ask why he wasn’t in any of them, but his tongue was heavy in his mouth.

‘Bucky,’ Steve said, taking a deep breath. ‘Tony Stark is going to buy the _Illness, Treatment, Healing_ triptych.’

‘That’s amazing Steve,’ Bucky said. ‘Tony _Stark_.’

‘Yeah, yeah it’s pretty amazing. He’s… he’s going to pay $100,000 for it.’

Bucky dropped his fork and choked a little.

Steve turned red, and looked into his bowl. ‘Bucky, it means you could leave the job. Like, not both the jobs, I know that $100,000 isn’t that much in the long term, but it’s more than enough to pay for the rest of my treatment, and the follow up appointments.’ He looked up at Bucky through his eyelashes, that strange new tentativeness in the way he held himself.

Bucky stared at him.

‘You want that, don’t you Bucky? To leave the job?’

Why was Steve unsure?

‘It’s just, with you away so much this year I’ve wondered if – ‘ Steve broke off and pushed his bowl away. ‘If maybe you don’t feel the same way about me, now that I’ve changed.’

Steve couldn’t meet his eyes.

‘I don’t feel the same way about you?’ Bucky repeated tonelessly.

‘And I also feel –‘ Steve took another deep breath, and Bucky got the sense he had rehearsed this, maybe this morning with Sam and Peggy. ‘I feel like you weren’t here for me through a really hard time, and maybe we’re not – so close anymore.’

Bucky stared at Steve. He was so beautiful. He had always been so beautiful.

Steve waited uncomfortably. ‘What happened back in summer, when we –‘

‘When we fucked?’ Bucky said, hoarse and loud.

Steve flushed and looked down.

‘Like we’ve fucked maybe thousands of times before?’

‘But _I_ was different,’ Steve shouted, ‘I was _bigger_ , I hurt you _more_ , differently, I don’t know –‘

‘Didn’t you – didn’t you like it?’ Bucky asked, voice suddenly quiet.

‘I loved it Bucky, it was fucking hot. But what I am, what I do when I’m small feels different when I’m like this.’

‘I liked it Steve, I liked it.’ Bucky was almost pleading. ‘It was you, like you always are, my Stevie.’

‘You just – you haven’t been here Bucky. And I know it was for me, you did it for me, but I still blame you for not being here. I’m sorry, I still blame you.’

Steve finally met his eyes, angry and a bit guilty.

Shame, thought Bucky, shame was the name of the parasite.

‘I’m sorry Steve.’

‘But you could, you could stay more with the money from the painting. Just go back to SSR?’

‘Could I though?’ Bucky said, barely in control of the words coming out of his mouth. ‘Could I come back? You’ve made a life for me here Steve and’ – Bucky stared straight at him – ‘I don’t think it needs me.’

‘What? Bucky no, that’s not what I’m saying.’ Steve reached out a hand.

‘Steve,’ Bucky pulled away. ‘You don’t have to pretend. I saw you last night. You’re, you’re amazing as you always were but now everyone can see you. You don’t need me there, seeing you. Take the money, use it to pay for treatment.’ Bucky, crossed his arms across his chest.

‘Bucky, I – ‘

Bucky stood up.

‘I thought about this today, Steve, and after what you said I think – ‘ Bucky looked at his hands. ‘I think we still love each other, but a lot of that just comes from being each other’s only person for so long. You deserve to try for something else, something new.’

Steve was crying, staring at him disbelieving. But not saying anything.

‘My flight leaves early anyway. I’ve packed a bag. Everything else is yours.’

Bucky’s body was saying _no no no no no no no_.

But he had sat on the couch and thought it through today, thought about it when Steve came home and barely brushed a kiss across him, didn’t want to hold him like he used to. That whole last visit they had barely had more than chaste kisses. Surely those were sparks of desire he recalled from last night between Steve in his blue suit and Peggy in her red dress. Steve didn’t need him anymore, but more than that, he didn’t _want_ him anymore.

And why would he?

‘Bucky no, no, please don’t do this. Not like _this_.’ Steve was standing, awkward and uncertain, reaching out to Bucky as he walked into the bedroom, walked out with his bag filled with everything he could bear to take, to carry with him away from Steve.

‘I love you Steve, I do, and I think you still love me, but I – I just fucked up. I wasn’t here, I lied to you.’ Bucky gripped the handle of the bag. He wasn’t going to cry.

‘Sure, Bucky, yes you did, and I’m mad. But we can talk about it, we can fix it,’ Steve pleaded.

‘Can we?’ Bucky asked, staring him in the eye.

There they were, the lines etched by pain around Steve’s eyes – more of them now, even though the treatment had made his skin glow. Those lines on his forehead Bucky had seen so many time when Steve lay in bed in the bad days, weeks, months. They were deeper now.

‘It’s just,’ Steve whispered, ‘you knew me better than anyone. You took my choice away Bucky. And you suffered, I can see, I know, I hear it when you call me. And all of that’s _on me_ because you chose _for me_. I haven’t let go of it yet, Bucky, but I _can_ , I’m sure. If you’d just stop working at that place, stay here with me.’

But Bucky knew Steve Rogers better than anyone else in the world, and he didn’t think Steve could forgive that – Bucky making that choice for him.

‘Goodbye Steve Rogers,’ he whispered, and went out the door, leaving the keys on the table.

\-----

At least it was true that he didn’t have to work to Hydroil anymore.

He walked into Alexander Pierce’s office and when Pierce told him to drop to his knees he told him to fuck himself.

He told the guys he was quitting. Brock seemed a little sorry. Said he was his favorite cocksucker and slapped him on the ass.

They insisted everyone go drinking, drive out to the bar on the highway that didn’t seem to have a name.

As the night progressed and the bourbon flowed Bucky drank and drank as if it could silence the screaming in his skin.

Rollins was loud and offensive as always, but Bucky didn’t even notice.

Until Rollins was up in his face shouting, ‘ _Suck my cock you fucking fag that what you do when you go into the bosses office that how you get this job even though you’re nothin weak a fairy._ ’

And Bucky was swinging and it was on and it felt not good but right to smash his fist into that ugly face Brock laughing and egging them on until Rollins was on the ground, face bleeding and Bucky stumbled out into the night and vomited everywhere, the others coming after him.

‘You’re alright Barnes,’ Brock roared into the night.

\-----

It was a couple of years later that Bucky was in a pickup truck that went off the road, driven by a very drunk Brock Rumlow.

Bucky came around to the sound of his own screaming. The pain was on the left side, which made so much sense, because his heart was broken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pierce touches Bucky without his consent and uses his position to make Bucky do things like stay on his knees in front of Pierce, which makes him feel shamed and cry. Sometimes Bucky feels some arousal from these scenes, and feel guilty and ashamed.
> 
> \----
> 
> Thank you to everyone who commented and kudosed and read. I do love to know what you're thinking. For example - did the descriptions of the paintings covey anything to you, or were you thinking 'why is she spending hundreds of words describing paintings?'
> 
> If you have questions you would like to see answered, you can put them in the comments and later on Steve and Bucky will have a Conversation and who knows maybe your question will be answered? I know there is still a lot of stuff unresolved/unexplained and we will get there.
> 
> I have now finished my other story and I'm going to sensibly focus on this one until it's finished, so I'm aiming for weekly-ish updates.
> 
> I am on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/stuckyflangst) and now also [twitter](https://twitter.com/powerfulowl2) though I have no followers because I just started it as a fan account so I can't even do that thing where your friends follow you.


	5. You must try to fly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aftermath. The years pass by. How we name our feelings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone coming on this journey, and particular those who left comments. I know this isn't an easy ride. This chapter does contain references to/descriptions of Steve/Peggy but they're pretty brief. I've updated a few tags, so check that out, and as always let me know if I've missed anything.

_When I must remove your wings  
And you, you must try to fly_

_‘Hi Steve,’ Wanda greets him when he cam back from lunch. ‘How’s Sam?’_

_‘Good,’ Steve replies. ‘The new clinic is going well. I think he’s enjoying helping people who really need it.’_

_‘Don’t rich people need help too?’ Wanda teases._

_‘Yes, but they usually don’t need_ you _specifically. There’s always someone else they can pay. Sam says some of the people coming to the clinic have chronic pain and have just never been able to see a physiotherapist. Instead they’ve just been taking cheap drugs and gritting their teeth.’_

_Steve feels himself getting worked up. He’s been there. Imagine having Sam instead of cheap doctors with hard eyes._

_‘Some guy came in while you were out.’_

_Steve shrugs his coat off. ‘Yeah?’_

_‘He looked at things a lot, but didn’t buy anything.’_

_Steve hums distractedly._

_‘He looked a lot like the guy in the paintings. You know – the triptych.’_

_‘Yeah?’ Steve looks over at the paintings of Bucky and smiles sadly._

_‘Must’ve been handsome then.’_

_\-----_

Sometimes in later years when looking back on that moment – the moment Bucky left – Steve tries to count in his head how many minutes he wasted standing, frozen, looking at the closed door. He tries to count them and calculate exactly how much time he wasted when he could have been chasing Bucky.

Because when he finally realised he should go after him – grabbing Bucky’s keys, wrenching the door open, thundering down the stairs because the lift wasn’t working again, dashing out onto the street – by then Bucky was gone. Steve ran all the way to the station, trying to run and call Bucky at the same time, weaving around night pedestrians and being unusually careless with his hulking body.

But Bucky’s phone was off, he wasn’t anywhere on the route to the station. Despite his new, warmer body, Steve was shivering on the platform, his light sweater inadequate for the December night.

In later years he would run through all the other things he could have tried to do: he could have gone to an airport, any airport, and found flights to Houston, waited at every gate. He could have _flown_ to Houston, gone to Gabe’s house.

He didn’t do those things. He walked home, calling Bucky again and again until his phone ran out of batteries. He had left the door unlocked, but Bucky wasn’t back, wasn’t sitting on the couch or at the table waiting, saying, _Steve, we should talk about this_ , his hair falling across his face and his blue eyes fixed on Steve.

What he did do was stumble into the studio and huddle on the floor, trying to make himself small again, make himself the Steve that Bucky loved, the Steve that hadn’t driven Bucky away, whose prickles and anger and loneliness were tempered by a passion that exceeded his tiny frame.

In front of him was the final, unfinished triptych that hadn’t made it into the show. The heart of it, that Steve had struggled with over months in the apartment while his other works grew and blossomed at the clinic.

The first painting was one of Bucky from years ago, from a sketch Steve made one night when Bucky came home late from dancing and Steve made him strip and sit for him so he could capture that warm, loose-limbed joy. The second was painted during those hard years when Bucky would go down to Texas, and they couldn’t afford many flights home, and Steve was sick but Bucky would call him every day, and they would cry together often at night – Bucky about his horrible workmates, Steve about the pain in his limbs, his lungs, whatever it was that week. _He went into the desert for me_.

And finally a great sob tore out of Steve’s chest. _He went into the desert for me again, and what have I done_.

Because the third canvas propped onto the easel was nothing but sketched lines, a scatter of papers on the floor testament to Steve’s failure to express – the only way he truly can – what he felt for Bucky now. Now that he is in possession of this new body, all muscles and skin, that people look at and desire and touch so often. What was that body in relation to Bucky, who had loved every inch of Steve, had surrendered his skin and his muscles and his bones to Steve?

‘Bucky,’ he whispered brokenly, ‘I’m sorry I was so ungrateful for what you did for me.’ He spoke not to the cocky, soft youth or the tired, sunburnt man, but to the formless lines on the blank canvas – the Bucky he no longer knew. Here in this room Steve was a strange to himself; and a stranger to Bucky, who was once like his own flesh.

Steve lay down on the cold floor, staring into the shadows, phone clutched in his hand, breathing ragged and mind blank.

Tomorrow he would need to try to find Bucky. He would need to let people know. Sam and Peggy would sympathise, would _be on his side_. But they couldn’t really know, was the thing he saw now; couldn’t know what Bucky and he were to one another. They saw Steve in pain and alone, saw Bucky _choosing_ not to be with Steve. But Bucky was just doing what he always did – saving Steve from himself.

Maybe one day he would take their comfort, take their affection for him and let it soothe him. But not now.

‘Just you and me tonight, Bucky,’ Steve felt warm tears falling on his cold hands, staring at the ghost on the canvas.

By the time a ring jolted him out of his stupor the sky was light.

He scrambled to answer.

‘Bucky?’ he said, not even looking at the caller ID.

‘No man.’ Sam. It was Sam.

‘Are you okay?’ Sam asked. ‘You missed our run.’

Steve struggled to sit up against the wall. He tried to steady his breathing – the memory of old asthma attacks fluttering in his chest.

‘Bucky and I – had a fight – he –‘ Steve took a shaky breath ‘– left –‘

‘I’ll be right over,’ Sam said, ‘stay right there Steve.’ The line went dead.

Steve leaned his head back on the wall. He tried calling Bucky again but his phone was still off.

He clumsily typed out a message. _Please Bucky I love you don’t go_.

Why hadn’t he said that to his face? Steve buried his head in his hands.

There were other things he could do. He could call Becca, who didn’t mind Steve, unlike the rest of Bucky’s family. _Wasting his life on you. Could have gone to college. If you were a better person you’d let him go._

Bucky was gone now. Now that Steve had sucked him dry, that fresh faced boy in the painting who had so many friends, loved to dance, melted like butter under Steve’s hands eyelashes trembling with tears. That boy went into the desert and came back bigger, coarser, but still so beautiful, eyes holding the big skies he’d suffered under, still yielding and fluttering open under Steve. And Steve had been so grateful to him then, the medicines Bucky’s wage paid for, the bills, keeping Steve alive after his Mum had died. Loving him fierce and enduring as the earth.

Not this time.

Steve had been so _ungrateful_ – not because of the pain, the suffering, though that was what he’d said to Bucky, _lied_ to Bucky. No, it was because when he got here, to this new healthy body that had grown so much more than anyone expected, filled out more than anyone expected, he was unhappy in it. Didn’t know where to put all of this strength, this heavy flesh.

And then that night he and Bucky had fucked and it was these huge hands marking him, holding him down, his hips driving his cock into Bucky harder than he had ever been able to, splitting him open, it and been Steve and not Steve; left him trembling and sick with himself. Ungrateful. Though even now the shame mixed with sweet desire at the memory of Bucky laid out across the table, the arch of his back, his golden skin glistening with sweat and pink with pain and desire.

 _We fucked,_ Bucky had said, _like we always do_. But was it? Were they the same people? Who was this Bucky who visited him like a wraith, was closed away behind his eyes, voice tight and hard on the phone? The pain that they had always both carried between them, sharing through their bare skin and kisses, was gently shut away and they were awkward and distant, strangers to each other. Who were they now?

Bucky had fallen apart like he always did, but he was holding part of himself away from Steve.

Steve was sobbing silently, body shaking, when he heard the door open and Sam’s voice call out. Then Sam was crouching in front of him wrapping him in a hug. Steve leaned into his arms, keening.

‘Oh Steve, I’m sorry,’ Sam murmured, rubbing circles into his back. Steve missed his Mum so much – she would rub his back like that when his chest ached from coughing.

‘I need to try to get hold of him,’ Steve sniffled. ‘His phone is off, but maybe I can call his sister. I can send him an email.’

‘Sure Steve, I’ll help you however you need,’ Sam said gently.

‘I know you don’t like him, Sam,’ Steve croaked, ‘but he is everything to me.’ Steve looked up at Sam with wet eyes, shaking in Sam’s strong grip.

‘I just don’t know him, Steve,’ Sam said. ‘But I know you love him, and I can’t imagine how much this must hurt. I’m sorry if I made you feel like I didn’t like him. I was just being protective – sometimes I go a bit over the top with that.’ Sam patted his shoulder and frowned a little.

‘Let’s get some coffee into you Steve, and maybe a little food. You’ll need your strength to find him.’

Sam pulled him to his feet and paused for a moment when he saw the paintings – the two leaning up and the third sketchy canvas.

‘They were for the show,’ Steve whispered. ‘But I couldn’t finish the last one. I –’ he broke off, staring at the outline. ‘I felt like I didn’t know him anymore. Because I wasn’t that person who knew him.’

Sam put an arm around him and gently led him out to the kitchen. On the table in the living room their pasta bowls were still on the table, like ancient ruins.

\-----

Steve did call Becca, who sounded troubled.

‘Steve, I understand you’re worried.’ She sighed into the phone. ‘I am too, and for…’. She paused.

‘Look, I’ll tell him you called, but I can’t give you his new number and he’s not in contact with me much either. I’m sorry Steve, I’m really sorry.’

He sent long emails to buckybarnes@gmail.com but received no replies.

He called Gabe in Houston, who he had never met, and who like Becca sounded worried, but could promise only to pass the message on.

And Bucky new how to find him. Steve was here. He had the same number, on the plan he and Bucky had once shared, the second number now disconnected. His email address was the same. This was the apartment he had lived in for his whole life.

Steve wrote long letters care of the only address he knew – the SSR post box. They came back stamped return to sender.

He would write them for years, ceasing to send them, but keeping them all in a box. Steve was never great with words when it came to feelings rather than rants about the state of the world, or speeches to Bucky or his mum, and his sentences stumbled and tripped. But he sketched memories and things he saw that made him think of Bucky.

Sam was a rock for him, turning up to take him running, make him eat. He took him to his family Christmas and tucked him into a corner with his grandmother who monologued so much Steve never had to say a word.

Steve was never great with words. And he ran over again and again what he said to Bucky that night, the time before when he found out about the second job. How little any of those things mattered.

But something mattered. Something still sat heavy in his chest – unexpressed and dark and heavy.

He’d talked to Dr Banner about it months back. After the pain had ebbed a little.

‘I feel – something.’ His tongue was heavy. Dr Banner nodded, quiet and gentle as always.

‘I feel like Bucky and I are growing apart. Like there’s things he’s not saying to me. Maybe he doesn’t feel the same about me anymore?’ Steve tested the words – was that the name of the fear that crawled over his ribs?

‘How do you feel about him?’ Dr Banner asked.

Steve closed his eyes and felt the _so much everything_ he felt when he thought of Bucky.

‘I love him,’ Steve said, but the words felt inadequate. ‘But I’m – I’m different from before.’

He struggled to explain – Bucky was part of him, so if Steve changed, did Bucky change? Did _them_ change?

Dr Banner encouraged him to work on vocalising his emotions, describing them. He tried to practice with Sam and Peggy, testing out explaining this… _grief?_... that lodged inside him.

But he knew now it had never worked. They both seemed to think he was saying Bucky hadn’t been there for him, and he started to think – maybe? He had never felt _let down_ by Bucky before, maybe this was it. _Ungrateful_ a small voice whispered then, and after Bucky’s departure became louder and more insistent.

Why had he cared so much that Bucky hadn’t told him about the second job? It didn’t make sense to him anymore. Sure, Bucky had lied, but _everyone_ lies. Bucky was an idiot and should have been able to wait a year so they could save, and he should have never gone back to that awful place, but he had, and he had done it because he couldn’t bear the thought of Steve dying. _He went into the desert for me_.

Whatever Steve had felt before, by January that dark plant in his chest had blossomed heavy petalled flowers of shame.

All that saved him was Sam and painting. He had the gallery commission, and they seemed to want to see more of the body horror theme, and Steve could do that for them in spades. He painted in the studio on a new easel – the sentinel of the empty canvas watching from the corner, the hole around which Steve painted.

Everything was red and flesh and shadows, with retreating hints of desert blue eyes, stars he knew only from stories.

Peggy had gone back to England for Christmas, and he didn’t see her until February.

She hugged him tight, and he knew she was angry at Bucky, but Sam must have talked her down, because she largely avoided the topic, talking about his new paintings, telling stories about home, saying he should visit Europe sometime.

He smiled shakily at her beauty and her concern, buried his resentment about how quickly and harshly she had judged Bucky.

_I know it’s expensive Steve, but he should be here for you, or at least get an iPhone or something so you can see each other when you call. How do you know what he’s doing? He does have insurance._

He saw now that she could never understand how much it had cost them to participate in the program. Cost everything it seemed in the end.

It was eight months later, as summer turned to autumn again, that he received an official looking envelope in the mail.

_Summons with Notice. Notice of Automatic Orders. Affidavit of Defendant._

Bloodless instructions for him to fill out the Affidavit from a lawyer.

Steve’s hands shook. _Uncontested Divorce. Irretrievable breakdown._

He could remember how bright the sun was the day they had married. How handsome Bucky was in his suit, how neatly Steve tucked under his arm. Steve had been so _happy_. It was almost unexpected. He had never really minded much about marriage. Who needed the state to say you were a couple, in love? It was still an exclusionary patriarchal institution.

But it had been a beautiful day, and they were all dressed up, and Bucky gave him flowers and kissed him on the steps of the registry office.

Steve sat down trembling at the table.

His hand had grown to big for his ring at some point in the treatment, and he had taken it to get it expanded, even though it was cheap. He had forgotten to tell Bucky. _See, it mattered to me, it mattered_.

There was a letter setting out proposed terms. Steve kept the apartment and Bucky kept his 401K; the shared bank account divided in two.

They had so little, in the end, to divide

Nothing from Bucky. Just from some lawyer in New York. Was Bucky in New York.

The grief carefully managed with routine and prescription sedatives coiled in Steve’s stomach and he ran to the bathroom to retch uselessly into the basin. He must have forgotten to eat again.

He looked at his face, which had a grey pallor to it. Unsurprising, he supposed, with the world so grey now.

He pulled his phone from his pocket and called Becca.

‘Steve,’ she said, sounding unsurprised. ‘You got the papers.’

‘Yeah,’ he managed.

‘Look, I’m arranging it through the lawyer. Please, I know you don’t want it but –‘ she sighed. ‘He does. He’s not –’. Fuck – there was so much she knew, so much she wasn’t telling him.

‘Please Steve, sign them. I’ll file them and sort everything out. Please. For him.’

Steve clutches at his chest, at phantom pains in a heart once weak. The body had been weaker then, but that Steve was stronger, better; loved better.

‘Okay. I’ll sign them.’ Steve let out a shuddering breath. ‘Please, please tell him that I’m so sorry.’

Becca snorted. ‘He says the same.’

‘He has nothing to be sorry for.’

‘He’ll say the same.’

Becca hung up.

Steve signed the papers, and put the ring and the wedding picture in the box with the letters. He wrote one with a sketch of the ring on his hand and the little shop where he’d got it expanded. Was it in summer?

Sometimes when he came back from work Bucky’s ring would be on a chain around his neck. Steve could picture him, spread out on the bed, arms tied with back silk ties to the bed head, ring nestling against his heaving chest in that perfect patch of curling dark hair. He had been waring black silk panties that night – had worn them all the way home on the plane – and the tip of his erect cock poked out from the soft material.

Steve felt a rush of desire mixed with shame and guilt and palmed his cock through his pants, gritting his teeth as he remembered Bucky’s cries at the kiss of the strap across his thighs, turning, wrists still bound, and presenting his ass to Steve, looking back at him through a veil of hair, the ring swinging from his neck.

‘Oh Bucky,’ Steve whispered, moving his hand to grip the sink tightly.

\-----

**3 years later**

Steve was cold. Which was weird because he was in Austin and it was a hot day. But they seemed to really love their air conditioning in Texas, and the gallery was smallish, so he was wishing he had a sweater with him.

He went into the back room and looked around for something warmer. He had goosebumps for fucks sake. He eventually found an orange Longhorns hoody which was too small for him and stretched across his chest, but whatever.

While he was in the back room he heard the gallery door swish open and clock closed, and he wanders out. Usually people just want to have a look, and he lets them be, but it’s good to be there in case they have a question or in the unlikely event they actually want to buy something. The person is in the second room, so Steve just sits at the counter and scrolls through his phone.

Sam had sent him a funny picture of his new dog, which is a golden Labrador which Sam keeps joking about – something about his tendency to adopt hopeless, large, golden things. Steve narrows his eyes a little.

Peggy has message too – a picture of the new garden at the clinic which one of the patients has set up. Peggy is a full member of the clinical team now, and Steve is very proud of her. Tentatively happy, even, about their newly blossoming romance.

It had been strange, realising that his warm feelings for Peggy which had started when she spent so much time with him in the clinic, were tested and cooled after the break up with Bucky, and had grown over the past year after she came back to New York to work with Dr Erskine again.

He had been practising forgiveness – of himself, of others. Letting go of his eternally flaring anger. Never dousing it.

‘That’s impossible,’ Dr Banner had said, rolling his eyes a little, ‘and let me tell you I’m an expert there.’

And now he and Peggy were trying something… new. For the past few months. And it was going… well? He hummed a little, frowning slightly. There were still shadows for him to struggle with, but he couldn’t hold onto Bucky forever. Everyone said.

Footsteps approached and Steve looked up, preparing a half smile that said _I’m here but you can also ignore me_.

Then Bucky stepped through the door.

Steve blinked, shocked, meeting those blue eyes that still appeared in his dreams, that colour with its minute variations that still appeared in corners of his canvases.

‘Bucky?’

Bucky started and stepped back slightly, obviously not expecting Steve. Though he must have seen the name. Checked through the window. Come inside.

Steve stood up straight, throat tight.

Bucky was wearing a cap over long hair, a scruffy beard covering his face, the simple in his chin obscured. His red short sleeved Henley stretched across his chest, jeans fitting snug around his thighs. He was softer than he had been, but still muscular.

Oh. He only had one arm.

Bucky looked down at his left side and gave a little chuckle.

‘I’m not quite the man I was, Steve.’

And Steve laugh, sudden and unexpected, then clapped a hand over his mouth, blushing.

‘Sorry,’ he said in a strangled voice. ‘I just – ‘

Bucky smiled at him, and crinkled his eyes a little, though it quickly faded.

‘Sorry, I um, saw your name and I thought I could just… take a look. They’re um… really good. As always.’

Steve looked around dazedly at his paintings. This exhibition was something a bit different. He’d finally managed to leave New York last year, hiring a car with Sam and driving through the south then west.

He was touring the exhibition at cities along the route they’d driven. Sam appeared in several of them – scowling at a confederate memorial in a cemetery in South Carolina, leaning against a car and turning his face up to the sky in the desert.

‘You final made it out of the city, hey?’ Bucky said.

‘Yeah, yeah it was great.’ Steve smiled. ‘I finally saw the stars properly.’

_And all I could think about was you looking at them too._

‘Would you like to um, get a coffee or something?’ Steve asked. ‘I could lock up for an hour.’

His heart was hammering in his chest. There was no one here to tell him not to do this.

Except Bucky, who was tilting his head and thinking.

‘Sure,’ he said finally, and Steve released a breath. ‘Iced coffees.’

They wandered down the footpath together and Bucky led them to a coffee shop with an extensive garden. He ordered them two ice coffees and they sat under a tree decorated with rice paper lanterns.

‘So,’ Steve said, fiddling with his coffee. ‘What are you up to?’

Bucky seemed to think before he said anything, sucking on his straw.

‘Well, I had a car accident about a year ago, and I was pretty badly injured.’ He gestures at his arm. ‘Just a stupid accident – me and the guy driving were really drunk. The arm was the worst, but I had a bunch of other injuries as well – my spine, my left leg, head injury.’

Steve felt a flutter of concern and somewhere buried deep a _I should’ve been there I should’ve been there_. He pushed it down gently. He was letting go, letting go of Bucky, who was here and warm and soft and just as beautiful as ever.

‘Anyway,’ Bucky continued, ‘I got a bit of a payout from my work insurance. I was, um, just working for SSR then. I quit Hydroil after… well.’ He looked into his drink.

‘But it took months of treatment. But I had a really great physical therapist, Natasha.’ He smiled fondly. ‘She was terrifying and she totally kicked my ass. Anyway, I had nowhere to go when I was being discharged, so she took me in.’ Bucky tipped his cap up. ‘I’m living in her studio at the moment. She’s got some scheme about starting a consulting company to help businesses identify risks.’

‘Risks?’ Steve asked, a little bewildered.

Bucky rolled his eyes. ‘Yeah. Apparently it’s a big corporate thing. Natasha has a theory that corporate types don’t know anything about risk and she’s going to promote out “points of difference”.’ Bucky actually made the air quotes. Something warm twisted in Steve’s chest, and he let it stretch.

‘What are those “points” exactly?’ Steve asked.

‘Well, I’m a one-armed ex-oil rig worker, Natasha used to be a stripper and possibly some sort of organised crime enforcer, and her friend Clint was in the circus. So, we know about risk. Is the theory.’

Bucky raised an eyebrow and Steve laughed, letting it bubble up this time. Obviously Bucky had had some bad times, and Steve wasn’t going to push on those. But he was okay. He was okay. He had people. He was soft and alive and his eyes were a little sad and there were some lines around his eyes that were there a little early, but he was okay.

‘What about you?’ Bucky asked. ‘The painting is still going well?’ It was a polite question, and that cut a little, but Steve would take it.

‘Yeah, I’m touring with this one. I’ve sold a few pieces. Um, I do okay out of commissions and the occasional show. I’m lucky.’

Steve knew they were both probably thinking about Steve’s first show – prelude as it was to their parting. Steve wanted to tell Bucky that he had wanted Bucky to be in the show, explain it was Steve’s own failure that had meant the piece was incomplete. But it was still incomplete, still sat in his studio. So Steve didn’t say anything.

‘And the treatment was all okay,’ Bucky was looking down, his fingers tapping on the glass, a small nervous tell.

‘Yeah, Buck,’ Steve breathed, glad to give him this. ‘All the follow ups have gone well. I’m okay. I’m good.’

Bucky’s shoulders imperceptibly relaxed a little.

‘You still see Sam and Peggy? I mean, Sam was in the paintings so I guess you’re friends?’ The question was light, and maybe Bucky was just checking that he wasn’t alone, but Steve couldn’t help a quick welling up of guilt.

‘Yeah,’ Steve said quickly. ‘Sam is great. And, um, Peggy and I are seeing each other at the moment.’

Steve wriggles nervously in his chair, knowing it’s okay, _telling himself_ it’s okay.

‘At the moment?’ Bucky asked.

‘Yeah, just in the last few months.’

‘Oh,’ Bucky says thoughtfully, eyes on Steve. ‘Is that going well?’

‘I think so?’ Steve said weakly, wishing he could say more, or less. ‘What about you? Are you seeing anyone?’

Bucky shakes his head. ‘Not right now.’

They change topics, Bucky telling him he still sees Gabe sometimes – Houston isn’t too far. He likes Austin, misses New York sometimes.

Then an hour has passed and they get up to leave.

‘Good to see you Buck,’ Steve says. ‘I’m glad you’re alright.’

Bucky smiles, slow and sad.

‘You too, Steve, you too.’

They part without a hug or exchanging numbers.

Steve has a moment when he thinks about saying something – _I still love you, Can we try again_ – but there’s Peggy, and Bucky looks like he’s doing well, and Steve doesn’t want to ruin something he gets the sense Bucky has worked hard to construct out of the ruins. Steve knows that feeling – how delicate life feels once it has crashed around you once before.

He can’t believe he was wearing that stupid hoodie the whole time.

\------

**2 years more  
**

Sam had offered to pick him up from the airport, but Steve refused. He wanted to return to his city alone, find comfort in her embrace, let the scent of the city soothe him.

He didn’t have much with him. Peggy had commented on that when he arrived in London. _You’d think it was just a holiday_.

And that had been at the heart of it all, the gradual unravelling. Peggy had never really believed Steve’s heart was in it.

It had started back in New York, when she had seen the box of letters, the unfinished canvas. _I thought you were letting go Steve_.

So he’d packed them away, stopped writing letters. He’d never tried to google James Barnes risk consultant.

When Peggy got the job in London, it had seemed like a great opportunity to go to Europe, get into the art scene over there.

But he’d missed his city.

Peggy he knew thought it was Bucky, it was all about Bucky. But it was other things too. It was Brooklyn, it was the expanses of land stretching out across the continent.

It was. Other things. When they first got together, Steve had talked to Peggy about how sex was a struggle for him now. Even though this body was bigger, more desirable, he didn’t know where his desires fit inside it.

He had, eventually, told her about what he liked – the scenes, the impact play, the restraints. And she had said _Steve, I know you must have felt very powerless when you were small, and those games were a way of accessing power. But you don’t have to feel that way anymore. We can be together as equals_.

Like Bucky and he hadn’t been equal.

But he was confused about what he wanted, pushed down the discomfort he felt at the psychologising, the reduction of his desires.

And his new body was more responsive. He could enjoy sex with Peggy.

It didn’t consume him though. And over time they had less and less, and that became more and more of an issue.

And now here he is, on the subway going _home_.

A certain peace has settled over him, the days in a cheap hotel in London alone, the flight home. He lets the feeling – _grief_ – well up and overwhelm him. Grief he understands now – grief for that small, angry person, always in pain, that loved Bucky so perfectly and so well. Grief that he believed he wasn’t allowed to feel because he was _better_ now and _stronger_. So instead he believed he was something else – angry at Bucky.

And then he found himself grieving that loss too.

Dr Banner had said it was fruitless to try to douse the anger. And so it was fruitless to think the grief would leave him.

The train rocked and swayed, and Steve stood quietly with the ebbing and flowing of his grief, his shame.

\------

Stepping out of the club into the quite suburban street, Steve was surprised to find he did feel a little better.

The club had been welcoming. A friend had acquired him an invite, even as a single man ( _I’m sure they wont mind me sending you_ ) and he was grateful.

His partner in the rope tying course had been a very young and pretty man, who had wriggled and moaned delightfully when Steve tightened the ropes to cut into his soft flesh just right. And later, the woman in her forties with strong thighs and a soft belly had sobbed and writhed on the bench when he spanked her – pale skin showing pink marks.

And no one felt any need to explain or ask why. They were just there, and it was good. He’d spoken to a few people, talked about art, sketched a collar design for someone.

Steve breathed out into the cold night air and shoved his hands into his pockets.

 _Home_.

Almost.

When he gets back to the apartment he sets up his old easel, and pulls out the canvas with the rough charcoal sketches.

He’s ready, finally, for the third painting.

\-----

Neither of them ever touched the joint bank account.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was HARD. Please let me know how it worked for you, even if it didn't. I am REALLY RECEPTIVE to comments and conversations. The comments so far have been amazing. One day I promise I will proof read properly and fix errors, but at the moment perfection is the enemy of regular posting.
> 
> It should get better from here. Another reunion is imminent. This chapter is sort of the pivot.
> 
> I also welcome discourse of all kinds on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/stuckyflangst) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/powerfulowl2). Though fandom twitter is kind of terrifying? Also I only have one follower.


	6. Come sail your ships around me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone who's been reading. It really means a lot to me that you're so involved in this (up until now) sad little story. Sorry the update was a bit later than usual. It's taken me a bit to work through the passage of time in this chapter. Things are starting to coalesce.
> 
> Warnings: Minor Bucky/random other in this chapter but it's brief. Brock is a bit creepy as per the tags - check the end note if you're worried.

_Come sail your ships around me  
And burn your bridges down_

_James stands outside the Met. He’s early, but he wants some time to look at the paintings, read the artist statements before the crowds descend. Because there will be crowds. Trust Tony Stark to take a modest idea and end up with a mini-Met gala._

_He flexes his arm and remembers his visit to the small gallery where Steve had his exhibition. The paintings of him. Bucky shuts his eyes briefly, listening to the plates whirring and shifting as he moves his fingers. His eyelashes flutter._

_He drops his coat at the check and makes his way down a path lit by fairy lights, hearing the hum and tinkle ahead of hushed preparations._

_How did he end up here? he wonders. Here walking in with his fancy leather shoes and his expensive tailored suit and the most advanced prosthetic arm in the world attached to his shoulder._

_Behind his sternum the old sadness pulses, in the place he pushed it to, unable to disperse or destroy it – it whispers that he would surrender it all in a second to be back in a small, damp apartment in Brooklyn, reading quietly in a chair while his slender, tow haired love scratches away at a drawing on the old dining room table._

_You’d have to look deep into James Barnes’ eyes to see that though._

_He smiles at the staff preparing the champagne bottles and the rows of glasses and they smile back, quite a few of them looking over him with warm appreciation in their eyes._

_His bones ache with the cold of not being touched for so long._

_He slips into the room where the main game is – the paintings by ten carefully selected artists whose work focuses on bodies and transformation, illness and health. One artist to be selected – granted the prize of painting the first five people to test Tony Stark’s newest, most advanced prosthetics._

_And there in front of him on a canvas, large as life, is Steven Grant Rogers, small and bony like he is in James’ dreams, but nowhere near beautiful enough. His face is marked by shadows like bruises, his body marked by red lines of pain. He reaches to touch a mirror, where a reflection reaches back – a blond Adonis whose features are clear but cold, standing in the sunshine._

_Standing beside the canvas, huge shoulders hunched in a tailored navy suit, clutching a champagne glass, is the man himself._

_James is an idiot. Artists working on bodies and transformation, illness and health. Tony Stark at the exhibition, that terrible night so many years ago._

_Then Steve turns and looks straight into his eyes._

_Bucky smells the ocean._

\-----

Bucky stood outside on the platform, leaning against the railing. When he was out here, away from Steve, he often watched the waves in the darkness, under the starlight or the moon, or hidden by soupy fogs but still moving ceaselessly, hushing and lapping.

He would think how he carried his love for Steve like an ocean in his chest, how when their eyes met it was like the unmarked meeting of two oceans – the line drawn on the map meaningless when you were in the middle of the water. He would smell salt and think of home, hear the waves and thing of the sound of Steve’s uneven breathing in the darkness. Everything in the universe was connected, linked – he could touch the air and he was touching Steve.

Now every particle of that ocean within him was weeping, and he listened to the waves and felt his heart sounding the ocean floor – this is the depth of my grief.

His fingers trembled on the cold metal.

Every atom in the universe was a separate and spinning in space.

He reached for his pocket, for this flask, but suddenly Gabe was standing beside him, big and warm and frowning slightly.

‘Barnes.’ His voice was serious. ‘Look, I know this has been a hard time for you, and the guys and me, we’re all real sorry.’

‘But,’ Bucky huffed with a half-hearted smile.

‘But,’ Gabe smiled back kindly, ‘the drinking on the rig has got to stop.’

Bucky sighed and rested his forehead down on the rail.

‘I’m not gonna report you, or say anything, but you known it puts us all in danger.’ Gabe stared at him, unflinching.

‘Yeah,’ said Bucky, ‘yeah.’ He squared his shoulders and raised his head. ‘You’re a real asshole, you know.’

Gabe pulled him into a hug. ‘I know, Barnes.’

Bucky blinked back his tears.

\-----

Bucky had got himself an apartment in Galveston. He liked to hear the sea all the time now – liked the sting of it in his eyes when he ran on the beach in the morning.

He never worked out how Brock got his address, but there he was on the doorstep on day two of Bucky’s two week break.

‘My favourite faggot!’ Brock grinned and slapped him on the shoulder. Bucky scowled at him and that seemed to make him even happier.

‘Come on fuckwit, let’s go out!’

Bucky had already had a few beers. Felt like shit.

‘Sure thing. Give me a moment.’ He went inside and splashed water on his face, pulled his hair back off his face, sprayed on some deodorant.

What did it matter?

He met his eyes in the mirror. His skin was sallow under the work tan, eyes puffy with booze and lack of sleep.

This was it. This was it now.

\-----

And so it went.

Sober weeks on the rig with side eyes sometimes from the team at Bucky’s haggard face and bloodshot eyes, frequent bruises and split lips. The smell of salt.

His small, bare apartment. Fridge full of beer.

Brock at the door – turning up at all hours, any day.

Shitty sports bars and bourbon shots. Hustling pool tables – Bucky’s eye sharp as ever. Brock loud and stupid and genuinely shitty, paving the way for Bucky to clean up.

Nights humid and red with sweat and violence. Brock loved to start fights. And not like Steve had when they were young – full of passion and righteousness. Just an itch under his skin to hurt, to swing a fist, the taste of blood.

And Bucky liked it too – felt the itch. Like the blooming pain of a fist landing on a cheek – blooming on your face or in your hand – could drown out the other pain, the other noise, burn away the slick of shame that coated his ribs.

Waking stinking and aching on the couch, the floor, the bed, to find nothing had changed, nothing was better.

On the phone to Becca.

‘You gotta arrange it Becca, the divorce.’

‘Bucky, are you drunk?’ Is she angry? Tired? What time is it.

‘I gotta make sure he’s properly rid of me, Becs, gotta take care of it. He won’t do it.’

‘Call me in the morning, Bucky. Please. You don’t want to do this.’ Angry? Is she crying?

But in the morning he does call back.

‘I mean in Becca. We’re done. Please can you arrange a lawyer, get the papers filed?’

‘He calls, Bucky. He asks for you. Please talk to him. He wants you back.’ Becca’s voice is thin and strained. She’s always liked Steve, even when the rest of Bucky’s family though he was just a burden, dragging Bucky down.

They never understood that Steve lifted him up. And look what he’d done with that. Look what he’d done.

‘No Becca, he doesn’t. He doesn’t know me anymore. What I’ve done.’ Bucky’s voice was toneless. He’s gone away somewhere.

‘He _loves you_ Bucky. I love you. Please, please don’t stay away.’

But she did it for him. Loyal to a fault.

And so it went.

His body became heavy and sluggish from the booze. But in the mirror his muscles rippled and his lips pouted, eyes said come hither.

Brock liked to set him up with guys. Point out the handsome ones.

One night Bucky’s on his knees in an alley. The guy has a hold of his head and is fucking down his throat. And Bucky likes it. His body is hot with it – the humiliation of it. It feels right. He’s nothing.

The guy comes over his face and hauls him up and with a few rough strokes Bucky’s coming too, eyes still watering and throat stinging.

When he straightens himself up and looks to the left there’s Brock, lounging at the end of the alley.

‘You done?’ Brock grins at him, leading them back to his truck.

Bucky didn’t get it. Doesn’t get what Brock wanted. That night Brock was half hard in his pants and Bucky thought he’d come into Bucky’s pace, make Bucky get back down on his knees maybe, bend him over the bed, call him a faggot while he fucked him.

But Brock just let him off on the kerb, slapping his shoulder hard and leering at him, and said he was heading off to find a hooker.

He was afraid maybe, or kinder than he seemed.

Bucky never worked it out.

One night they were driving from one terrible strip mall bar to another, barrelling through the night. Brock was singing loudly to shit hip hop, fancying himself a gangster, Bucky was leaning back against the headrest, eyes closed.

When he came to it was dark and everything hurt and he could hear screaming. He never worked out whether it was him or Brock.

\-----

He had stopped missing the arm by the time he met Tony Stark. Natasha’s crazy vodka-fueled idea of starting a risk consulting company had somehow led them to Stark Tower. Clint had managed to break into the building using a rope with a suction cup, a bow, and a deep affinity with air ducts. Stark was impressed and wanted to meet them all.

‘Why don’t you have a prosthetic?’ he asked immediately, staring suspiciously as Bucky’s neatly pinned sleeve.

Bucky shrugged. ‘I find them uncomfortable. And I have an excellent physical therapist who made sure I could do everything I needed to with one arm.’ He winked at Natasha who smirked.

‘But can’t you get one of my free ones? I give away free ones.’ Tony glared at Bucky’s sleeve, personally offended.

‘You give them to veterans. I’m just an idiot who got into my drunk friend’s truck for the hundredth time and finally ran out of luck.’ Bucky shrugged.

Tony narrowed his eyes, in what Bucky would come to know was his processing look.

‘There are lots of people with missing limbs aren’t there? Veterans, cancer patients, idiots.’

Bucky snorted.

‘Whatever,’ Tony waved a hand. ‘I’ve probably got more in common with the idiots. The point is, I could give them _all_ free prosthetics. In fact, I’m working on a better one right now. Want to be in my trial?’

\-----

_Steve looks really good. He has a golden-brown beard, his blond hair darkened a little. His lips are full and his eyes are blue as ever._

_James looks into those eyes and he’s Bucky again and they are two oceans and there’s no line between them. There's an angry boy with a bloody nose glaring up at him and saying I had em on the ropes. There's a skinny teenager kneeling over him panting shocked and afraid and aroused as a red mark blooms beautiful and burning across Bucky's thigh. There's a young man weeping in his arms. There's a blond head bent over a sketch pad. There's a tuneless voice singing in the shower. There's a summer day in Prospect Park and they're so poor but they have icecreams and each other. There's Coney Island and the smell of the sea. The sand between his toes and a cool palm in his. His heart sounds the ocean and yes yes he loves Steve as deep and wide as all of that and he'll go into the desert for him a thousand times again._

_‘Bucky?’ Steve says haltingly, stepping towards him._

_‘James,’ he says, smooth as anything. ‘I go by James now.’ He holds out his hand for Steve to shake and it’s not even trembling a little._

\-----

When Bucky woke up he knew straight away he was in a hospital and he was sorry he wasn’t dead. They’d been on the I-35 and he’d wound up being taken to a hospital in Austin. The doctors were relieved to find out he had excellent, comprehensive health insurance.

Bucky found out he didn’t have an arm anymore.

He would later think that was the time he was closest just to giving in. It was like the ritual of work had kept him propped up – kept him off the booze some of the time at least, given him something to hold onto that seemed to go forward, was something he could keep on doing this year, next year, the year after that.

Gabe came and visited him, walked through the paperwork for his pay out. The insurance was paying for rehab, he had his bed in this weird, slightly green room. Maybe he could just stay here forever.

Becca flew down and sat at his bedside.

She held his hand tightly and he wished he was good enough to smile for her, pretend he had some plans.

But he had trouble remembering to breathe.

‘I love you Bucky,’ she whispered, smoothing sweaty tendrils of hair off his face. ‘Please don’t stay away.’

On the third day she came to sit with him, Natasha Romanov entered the room.

‘Hello,’ she said.

‘Someone’s come to see you Bucky,’ Becca said softly, then stood,

‘Hi, I’m Rebecca, James’ sister.’

‘Natasha, I’m James’ physical therapist.’

Bucky turned his head to look, and saw a small red-haired woman in black slacks and a green silk shirt.

‘Is he well enough for physical therapy yet?’ Becca asked, frowning down at Bucky.

Natasha wrinkled her nose a little and narrowed her eyes at Bucky.

‘I’ve reviewed his file. It’s true James’ injuries are quite serious.' She put her hands on her hips. 'In many ways his missing arm is not the most serious. His spine was wrenched and he had serious bruising which has no doubt led to sever stiffness.’

Becca was nodding and frowning.

‘But quite frankly in my view the only reason James’ mobility hasn’t improved is because he’s not moving. So I’m going to get him out of bed.’ Natasha stalked across to the bed with a small smile on her face.

At that moment in time Bucky had decided he was simply never going to move again. He had gone far enough away that nothing hurt too badly anymore – not his body, not his heart. He was just going to stay there, thank you very much.

He had not, it turned out, factored in Natasha Romanov.

\-----

Becca loved Natasha. When Becca had to got back to New York, she smiled at Bucky and kissed his cheek and told Natasha to take care of him.

Bucky scowled at both of them.

He hurt. Everything hurt. His shoulder hurt, his ribs hurt, his back hurt, his legs hurt. His whole chest was a mess of grief and shame and every night he dreamed of Steve and woke up crying.

He had gone to see Brock, who was still in ICU. He was unconscious and badly burned. It was so strange. Bucky couldn’t remember a fire. Couldn’t remember anything but the screaming.

‘Hi Brock.’ He sat awkwardly, not knowing what to say. His palms started sweating and he was looking anxiously at the door.

‘Someone you don’t want to see coming to visit him?’ Natasha asked.

Bucky shuddered, closing his eyes briefly and feeling the rough floor under his knees, Pierce’s face smiling coldly from behind his desk, a heavy hand on his head.

‘Let’s go,’ he said, and Natasha stood and pushed him in the wheelchair out the door.

‘You don’t have to see anyone you don’t want to,’ she said to him, then forced him to stand and walk all the way back to the rehabilitation wing.

It was months later, when Bucky had finished a crippling twenty one armed pullups followed by one hundred jump squats, that Natasha asked him where he was going after he left here, that Bucky was forced to confront the fact that he had recommitted to existence, that he had left his bed and soon he would have to leave his green room.

‘I don’t know,’ Bucky said. ‘Becca wants me to go back to New York.’ He left that hang there, and looked at it, and didn’t much like the way it looked.

Natasha tilted her head at him.

‘Come and stay with me. I have a room above the garage. You can use my gym and pretend you’re not sad.’

Bucky rolled his eyes at her and of course he said yes because Natasha Romanov had saved him.

The thing about Natasha was she could see it – the grief that clung to him, the shame you couldn’t clean off the inside of your skin because it just clung more fiercely when you rubbed at it. She could see it but she didn’t try to talk about it, or fix it, because she carried her own shit and knew you could never lay it down.

So James went and lived above her garage and Clint would visit with his three-legged dog Lucky and showed James how to use rings and balance on a tightrope and juggle with one hand. _You’ve got nothing to unlearn man_.

And there was that one time that fucking Steve Rogers came to town and James saw his exhibition poster. He did look through the window and there was no one in there and so he went in. And it almost broke his heart to see those paintings of the desert and the sky, and to think he hadn’t been the one to show them to Steve. He allowed himself to imagine Steve’s eyes gazing up into the blue of the sky and him laughing – that rare and wonderful sound of unbridled joy bubbling from his enormous heart.

‘Bucky?’

And then he was there. He was there. But it was okay. James was okay. This was just his ex-husband. Just. Just.

They went to a coffee shop and made small talk and Steve was seeing Peggy. But only for six months. And James had thought. Had thought Steve would have. He blinked and breathed deeply.

He told Natasha about it that night.

‘My ex-husband is in town. He has an exhibition.’

Like the time Natasha had said to him, ‘I used to work there,’ as they drove past a strip club in some weird corner of the city.

‘Did you dance?’ James asked.

‘And other things,’ Natasha said darkly, and James thought maybe she was a sex worker, maybe she killed people, maybe both.

She would get drunk sometimes, and you could barely tell the difference, but she would come up with crazy ideas. Like she had the itch under her skin. Sometimes she would even rest her head on James’ shoulder, or lean into Clint, who would smile gently and touch her shoulders softly.

It was one of those nights she thought up Romanov & Associates. Four weeks later she’d quit her job and printed them all business cards.

And a year later they had an open-ended contract with Stark Industries.

\-----

‘So I’ve got a great idea,’ Tony said, closing the panels on James’ arm. ‘But I need to tell you when Pepper’s around because she’s going to need to do the things.’

James sighed. He really just wanted to go home. Stark’s fiddling had aggravated a weird nerve and his jaw kept twitching.

‘Okay.’

Stark was telling Jarvis to get Pepper to meet them in the kitchen near the lab. Bucky kept rubbing his jaw and thinking distractedly about his meetings tomorrow.

Pepper was already there, looking elegant in linen pants and a cashmere sweaty. Bucky always felt scruffy and awkward next to her, though she smiled fondly and kissed his cheek as she handed him a herbal tea.

He took it gratefully, warming his flesh hand and staring suspiciously at the metal prosthetic which had not behaved today.

‘So, my idea.’ Tony said.

Pepper looked sort of fond and terrified.

‘Basically, Pepper tells me all the health insurance companies are going to come baying for my blood if I try to give free prosthetics to everyone.’

‘I hate health insurance companies,’ James growled into his tea.

‘Yes!’ exclaimed Tony. ‘Everyone does right? But sadly they have a lot of influence, money yadda yadda, apparently even more than me, Pepper says. So, I have a plan to _win the hearts and minds_.’

James could swear Pepper groaned a little.

‘No, Pepper, this is a good one. I’m going to run an _art prize_ and the award will be painting all of the test subjects. Plus a Netflix documentary about the program and the paintings and the people. Lots of Instagram and stuff. Think about it – we’ve got veterans, mums, a grandfather, a kid…’

‘And an idiot,’ James finished.

‘And Barnes is the idiot, to show it really is for _anyone_.’

‘Hearts and minds via an art prize?’ Pepper sounded sceptical.

‘It’ll make great TV!’ Tony said. ‘I’ve got this whole voting system worked out. The patients – subjects – whatever – will vote on who should paint them based on an exhibition and artist statements, so it’s good publicity for the artists too. For drama the subjects can vote yes, abstain or blackball someone if they really don’t want to be painted by them.’

Pepper rolled her eyes a little, but James could see why Tony had chosen an art prize. Pepper really liked supporting artists.

‘Okay Tony,’ she agreed.

‘You’ll do the stuff?’ he asked.

‘I’ll do the stuff.’

‘Can I go home now?’ James asked.

\-----

 _Bucky –_ James _– is here._

_Steve is okay with that. He had been standing in front of his painting, feeling the creeping horror of it all again – his changed body, the person he had become who had been so careless, so cruel with the person he had loved most in the world, who had loved him most._

_And then he was there. As though conjured to show Steve that he wasn’t broken, that Steve hadn’t destroyed him. He was whole, and beautiful, and now he was James._

_And Steve still loves him. Looking at him here, on the other side of Peggy, Steve knows know that no one will ever fit him like James Buchanan Barnes._

_That in itself is a kind of gift._

_His heart throbs in his chest. James had politely shaken his hand, his skin holding the memory of callouses but smoother, softer than it had been._

_Steve had stepped away, saying James should spend some time with the paintings, choose someone who he liked._

_Neither of them mentioned that Steve had already drawn Bucky (James) a thousand times, painted him a hundred._

_Of course, James would black ball him. That was fine, and Steve sips his champagne and talks politely to people, while love and sadness blossom in his chest, all soft petals and thorns._

_He tries not to watch James, who spends a lot of time talking to a woman with red hair who seems a little familiar, and a disheveled blond man who is always near the canapes._

_He has friends, he has people._

_Sam appears at his shoulder._

_‘Is that?’_

_‘Yeah, yeah it is.’_

_‘Oh.’_

_Sam sticks by him for the rest of the night, so Steve doesn’t have to talk so much._

_Finally Tony is making a lot of noise and a screen is projecting onto the wall and Pepper is mentioning each of the artists and their excellent work._

_Steve watches James’ head. He’s standing at the front with the four other people in the program. A climber who lost a foot to frostbite, a veteran who lost both her legs, a girl who was born with only one arm, a man who’d had half his skulls removed to take out a tumor._

_Now Tony is talking about how he won’t force anyone to get a prosthetic and it’s totally fine to not want one and how maybe he forced the arm onto James and he won’t do that anymore._

_Steve’s heart is in his throat as he watches James (Bucky) scowling at Tony and his hair is short but styled and falls across his face which has more lines now, and still has traces of all those years working outside in the sand and salt (he went into the desert for me) and he’s even more beautiful than he used to be. More serious, more solid, more secret. Steve has never known so little of what’s in his heart._

_Steve’s breath is fluttering and then Tony is saying his name and everyone is looking at him ad Sam is pushing him a little._

_He meets James’ (Bucky’s) eyes for a moment and he smiles a little and shrugs as if to say_ what was I gonna do punk?

_And if Steve’s eyes are stinging a little they’ll just think it’s because he won a prize, which he did, he really did._

_\-----_

_James knows he could have blackballed Steve. Maybe should have. Now he’s going to have to sit alone in a room with Steve while Steve paints him._

_Natasha is glaring a little and Clint looks confused about why she’s mad._

_But when he looked at the painting and read the statement – my body was changed beyond my own recognition and I was forced to ask if I was still who I was before – he knew that no one else could know that feeling of being the same but also alien to yourself._

_Not that losing the arm had made him feel that way. No._

_The biggest part of himself he’d ever lost was Steve Rogers._

_Like someone had emptied the ocean and filled it with tears._

_He’s the idiot._

_He is the idiot._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional information: Bucky gives a random guy a blowjob in an alley and Brock watches.
> 
> As always, I love every one of your comments and I am open to criticism constructive and otherwise. I really appreciate all the people who have commented on this story. 
> 
> If there are things you would like to know about the characters' inner lives/mysteries on your mind let me know. Or if you have any concerns. You genuinely do influence what I write and how the story unfolds. Don't worry, I know there's still a lot of things not fully worked out yet. 
> 
> Upcoming highlights will include Steve and Natasha having a chat.
> 
> Talk to me on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/stuckyflangst) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/powerfulowl2). I love talking about fanfiction generally, or Steve and Bucky specifically.


	7. Come loose your dogs upon me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who has been commenting and liking whether it be here or on Tumblr. As I have said before, this story is a bit of a rough ride so your comments really mean a lot to me.
> 
> In this chapter Bucky starts to deal with Pierce's abuse. It becomes clear he blames himself for a lot of the things that happened to him. Be aware/take care.

_Come loose your dogs upon me_   
_And let your hair hang down_

Natasha is making tea in James’ kitchen when he gets the message.

His new rented apartment in New York, now that he’s here almost all the time, running their New York operation, being on call 24 hours for Tony Stark.

After all those years down south at first he felt hemmed in by the city, the buildings blocking the huge sky. But he’d slipped back into it now – a skin he thought he’d case aside.

_Hi James. This is Steve Rogers. Pepper gave me your number to contact you about the painting. I thought we could meet first for a chat somewhere public. Let me know when and where suits you._

Professional. Polite. Steve Rogers. Like maybe he would know another Steve that wanted to paint him. Is being paid to paint him.

Natasha comes in with two steaming cups of some no doubt ghastly concoction she’s purchased from an apothecary masquerading as a tea shop. Why she can’t just drink coffee like a normal person is beyond James.

She’s wearing black leggings and a loose, knitted sweater than sit just above her knees – pink with a giant red strawberry on the front.

When James had first arrived at Natasha’s house – a two story weatherboard house on a large block in South Austin – he had stepped inside and found himself wrapped in a spacious cocoon of bright colors, soft fabrics, mismatched cushions on comfortable chairs scattered everywhere. The walls were decorated with garish Americana memorabilia mixed with old watercolors of peaceful landscapes, flowers, bowls of fruit.

Natasha was a revelation to him always. As if that first day she sensed him floating away and grabbed him with her strong arms and held him to the earth. Always forcing him to walk one step further. Sparring with him in the gym until he stopped falling, learned to shift the wait of his feet differently, inhabit this new body of his.

‘You can get a prosthetic if you want,’ she shrugged, ‘but you don’t _need_ one.’

He found with time it made sense to him, the phantom limb, the space beside him. He wasn’t incomplete, just different.

And then she had taken him home and set him up with his own little space, filled it with blankets and cushions and wrapped them around him and brough him warm, bitter tea even as she scowled at him and told him not to mope, not to feel sorry for himself.

She drank too much, but didn’t let James do the same.

She sets the tea down in front of him and frowns. He is staring at the phone.

‘He’s messaged you. The ex-husband?’

James has told her so little, really – just scraps. _We were best friends. We were high school sweethearts. He was sick. I was working a lot. We broke up._

But Natasha had clearly drawn a line from where she found Bucky in a hospital bed, looking on death with friendly eyes, to _we broke up_ and had decided _the ex-husband_ had wronged James.

James would try to say no, it wasn’t like that, it was both of us, he changed, he found new people but Natasha would scoff and narrow her eyes.

‘Yeah, um, he’s suggesting we meet just to chat. Somewhere public.’ James chews his lips, breath constricting at the memory of Steve standing in front of him suddenly, huge and strangely softer, gentler than when he was five foot four inches of anger and love. James feels a little sick.

‘You could still stop this, James. Tony would do it for you in a heartbeat.’ Natasha sits beside him on the couch, leaning against the arm legs crossed elegantly underneath her.

James takes a sip of the tea and wrinkles his nose. ‘You’re just fucking with me at this point.’

Natasha smiles smugly. ‘It’s good for heartache,’ she says.

‘Exactly what a witch would say,’ James snorts and takes another sip.

‘He hurt you, James.’ Natasha’s voice is sharp. ‘Whatever you say, he hurt you. Becca told me you were working away from home to pay for his treatment. Then – what? You never tell anyone. He blamed you for not being there?’

James struggles to explain. To explain how Steve was always too good for him, and maybe just realized it after he got better, realized James ( _Bucky_ ) wasn’t good enough, didn’t need him, didn’t want him anymore.

‘We always hurt the ones we love, Natasha,’ he says finally, thinking of the ways he did Steve wrong, thinking about him on his knees for Alexander Pierce, desecrating the special things he shared with Steve.

‘We should try not to,’ Natasha says.

‘Yeah,’ says James. He could have tried harder. He tastes sand on his tongue and his skin is hot with shame.

\-----

_Sure thing. Caffe Reggio 11 am Tuesday?_

_Perfect – see you there_

\-----

Steve is already here, tucked into a small table by the window, watching the world go by. He has a cappuccino in front of him.

James is struck by how differently he holds himself. Steve Rogers would hold himself as tall and straight as he could with his crooked spine, jutting his chin out a little, particularly when he was alone. This Steve hunched his shoulders a little in his soft blue sweater, and curled in on himself, as if seeking out the space that smaller version of himself inhabited.

A sudden a burning urge to touch those shoulders, rest that head into his chest and stroke that soft dark-blonde hair tore through James. He almost gasped at the strength of it. Something inside him shuddered and creaked.

He moved his hand and focused on the whisper of the plates, the hushing sound that ground him in this moment – this moment where he and Steve Rogers had barely spoken in seven years. Where he didn’t need James’ comfort.

Steve looked up and saw him and smiled hesitantly.

James exhaled and walked toward him.

Steve stood a little awkwardly and said, ‘Hi James.’

‘Hi Steve.’ James pulled the chair back and they both sat down.

The waitress came over and James ordered an americano. Steve sat clutching his cup, eyes downcast, long lashes dark on his pale skin. _Don’t think about his eyelashes James_.

‘Thank you for meeting me, James,’ Steve says quietly. ‘And, um, thank you for not blackballing me in Tony’ crazy voting system?’ The last part comes out as a question, and Steve does finally straighten his shoulders a little, to take a deeper breath.

‘If the others wanted you to paint them I didn’t want to stop that,’ James replies. ‘They deserve to be seen how they want to be seen.’

Steve looks a little pained. ‘You deserve that too, James.’ He turns his desert sky eyes on James for a moment, then looks away.

James gives a tight smile and sips his coffee.

‘Anyway, I mostly wanted to meet today to’ – Steve takes another one of those deep breaths – ‘tell you that I’m happy to withdraw if that’s what you want. I’m doing okay, I don’t have to take the commission.’

James shakes his head. ‘It’s really fine Steve, I promise.’ Fuck, this is awkward. Somewhere inside him there are so many memories, pains, he thought were safe and sleeping, but they’re clawing at the walls he built around him, and those walls are creaking, cracking.

Steve is quite for a while, and his shoulders settle again. James surreptitiously examines the way the cable knit stretches across his broad chest. Natasha would like the sweater, he thinks distantly. He tries not to remember a smaller Steve drowning in one of Bucky’s jumpers, sleeves rolled up and delicate hands making cheap instant coffee in their tiny kitchen.

‘Okay, okay.’ Steve says. ‘Well, if that’s the case I wanted to say –’. He looks up at James and captures his gaze, brows furrowed and face determined. _This, this is Steve Rogers_. ‘I wanted to say that I am so sorry James for how I treated you. I was so wrong. I was cruel to you when all you had done, always, was make sacrifices for me that I was unwilling to accept graciously, and with love, which was how you intended them.’

Steve’s voice breaks a little at the end and for a moment tears swim in his eyes. _Steve hardly ever cries_.

‘It’s fine, it’s fine Steve. We both made mistakes. I wasn’t there for you.’

‘ _But you were_ ,’ Steve says fiercely, then leans back, as if trying to moderate his intensity. ‘You were always there for me Bu- James.’

James looks down at his coffee, ribs straining in his chest, heart pressed against his sternum. _He doesn’t know he doesn’t know what you did_.

‘Thanks Steve. It’s – it’s really okay. I’m good now. I’m doing real well.’

‘I know you are James. It’s amazing.’ James can hear Steve smiling, picture how that smile looks now with that new soft brown beard – an older, quieter Steve that carries griefs and memories James knows nothing about.

‘So,’ James says. ‘How does this work?’

And they talk about the painting process and set up a series of sittings.

‘Are you okay with coming to my studio?’ Steve asks. ‘It’s the same one – in the old place.’ He says it so carefully – _the_ old place. Once it was _ours_.

‘Yes, that’s fine. Be nice to see what you’ve done with the place.’

And James stands up smiling. The smile he uses for clients when they take him for coffee or drinks, or to play golf (a game he does not understand the point of).

He holds out his right hand and Steve shakes it, his palm calloused and roughened. When James looks down he can see the paint under Steve’s fingernails, the stains on his fingertips.

Natasha glares at him when he gets back to his apartment. She appears to have taken up a defensive residence in his spare room, leaving Clint to manage things in Texas.

‘Did he apologize to you?’ she asks him, sharp in her tailored green suit. She had a meeting with a potential new client managing a series of warehouses.

‘Yes,’ said James, scowling.

Natasha regards him thoughtfully.

‘Did you accept the apology?’

James doesn’t answer and goes to his room.

\-----

Steve is pottering around the apartment moving piles of books around, listening to Charles Mingus. Sam sometimes tells him he either needs to get a bigger place or get rid of some books, but Steve simply doesn’t want to do either of those things.

He just needs to find exactly the right shelving/piling system.

He’d just finished his session with Jettie and he’s feeling a little raw. He’s starting the project by getting people to tell their story, wherever they think it starts, trying to find the best pose for the painting, sketching as they shift and talk.

Jettie’s story had started right back at the beginning, growing up poor in Alabama, joining the military because she was good with machines and wanted to get some training. Two kids she had to keep leaving. Both legs lost in Afghanistan. No husband when she made it home.

Steve doesn’t know Tony Stark well – he’s had more to do with Pepper over the years. He tends to find Tony irritating, arrogant. Steve has had trouble forgiving him for the weapons manufacturing, remembering marching with his mother against the war. But the man is better at penance than anyone Steve has every known. Maybe he has one or two things he could learn from Tony Stark.

Jettie had shown him how the legs fit on, how she could jump and hop, strong thighs flexing as she did jump squats, lunges, laughing with joy as the pistons in the legs hushed and shifted.

Steve had filled a book with sketches, and knew he had to paint her moving.

A knock at the door, which is weird because he hasn’t buzzed anyone up. He unlocks the deadbolt and opens the door, and it’s the redhead who was with James the other night, who had glared daggers at Steve all evening.

She’s wearing tights black jeans and a tight knit black sweater with a small silver brooch of a spider clinging to a web. He hair is pulled back and he face is cool and appraising.

‘Hi.’ Steve says, feeling like he is definitely coming up wanting on whatever ledger Natasha is filling in.

‘Steve Rogers.’ It’s a statement.

‘Would you like to come in,’ Steve steps aside and gestures weakly with his arm.

‘I could be here to rob you and kill you.’ She steps inside, looking around.

‘I feel like you could do that even if I shut the door on you.’

She nods in agreement.

‘I assume you’re here to talk to me about James?’ Steve tries to keep his voice under control. This is a bad time for this. He’s tired, raw. The coffee with James yesterday, the session today.

‘Yes.’ She seems to make up her mind to sit at the table.

‘Would you like a drink?’ he asks.

‘Do you have tea?’ She’s still looking around, cataloguing, turning her attention to the pile of art books on the table.

‘Yes – herbal, black, green?’ He bustles into the kitchen, glad of something to do with his hands.

‘Do you have Russian Caravan?’

‘Yes, I do.’ He starts boiling the water, gets out the tea leaves, arranging a little milk jug, some sugar, some jam on a tray with the strainer.

When he carries everything in after five minutes, tea in a pot, she cocks her head to the side.

‘You really do have tea.’

Steve shrugs and laughs. ‘I, um, was in a relationship with an English woman for a couple of years. Lived over there for a bit. Kind of got into tea.’

Natasha hums a little, and takes a cup, some milk and the jam and pours the dark, smoky brew.

Steve does the same and they both sit, stirring their tea.

‘James said you apologized to him, for whatever it was you did.’ That look again, studying him, finding him wanting.

‘Yes, yes I apologized.’ Steve sighed and his shoulders slumped. All those words he had been burning to say for so long, practised so many times in the letters he never sent. And James had just shrugged them off, so sool and unruffled in his great cardigan and red shirt, eyes like the sky reflecting on ice.

‘But he didn’t accept your apology?’

Steve sighed. ‘He said he did but, it was like it wasn’t important. Like he didn’t think I’d even done anything wrong.’ Steve’s throat clogged up with frustration. _We both made mistakes_.

‘He made it sound like we were both to blame, but any faults on his side were only that he loved me more than I deserved, sacrificed more than I was worth.’ Steve felt a sob rising and fought it down. He was good at this; he was good at not crying.

Natasha examined him, and he felt a bit like a fat fly in a delicate web.

‘I suspect you both of being idiots,’ she said finally. ‘But James is very, very dear to me. What did you do to him, exactly?’

Steve stumbled a little, starting, but then it came out in a rush, aching to be told, confessed to someone who _wasn’t_ on his side.

‘I was sick, really sick. There was this new treatment, but it was too expensive for us. Bucky said we could afford it on his salary, but really he got a second job, with this awful company he’d worked for before, Hydroil. He didn’t tell me, and when I found out I was really mad at him for lying. I felt like – like he’d made the choice for me. And that would have been alright – I was always getting mad and he was always making up with me. But then I said all these other things, about how he wasn’t there for me when I was hurting. Even though he was _so there_ for me. He was working _for me_. Because he didn’t want me to die and he knew I was a stubborn shit and wouldn’t accept his help, his love.

‘And then –’ Steve’s voice breaks briefly ‘– then he left. He left and I didn’t chase him soon enough, or fast enough.’

He stares at his hands, coarse and paint stained as they always are.

‘When I met James it was after his accident. He had been in a car with some man called Brock –’

‘What?’ Steve interrupts. ‘Brock Rumlow?’

Natasha shrugs.

Steve clenches his fists, breathing ragged. ‘Brock was – he worked for that awful company. He bullied Bucky all the time, the first time he worked there. Called him faggot, pansy, stuff like that. But, like, slapped his ass all the time, touched him. Why was he with Brock?’

‘I don’t know.’ Natasha says. ‘James rarely talks about his past.’

Steve struggles against the rush of the familiar anger pulsing, squeezing his eyes shut. Now that he’s bigger he fights it down. It feels more dangerous in this huge, unwieldy body. But angry at who? He was the one who had pushed Bucky away, pushed him to Brock fucking Rumlow. He shudders.

‘Is he – is he okay now?’ Steve knows he’s not, maybe never will be. But he hopes with all his heart James can be, is.

Natasha makes a face. ‘He’s okay. But he never wants to go on any of the dates I arrange for him.’

Steve almost smiles, imagining that Natasha would be an indefatigable matchmaker.

‘Does he go dancing?’

Natasha shakes her head.

‘He always loved dancing, ever since we were young.’ Steve smiles into his tea. ‘I couldn’t dance really because of my asthma, definitely couldn’t go to clubs. When we were first living together he would go out dancing all night and come back in the morning glowing. He was so beautiful. I’d be up, often, because I slept badly, trying to draw or paint and in a terrible mood. But he’d wrap me up all warm and smelling like smoke and sweat. He’d wear these mesh tops and tight pants.’

Steve thinks of the painting he’d done – Bucky young and loose and happy, even though his parents had disowned him and he was working shitty hospitality jobs for tips and free coffee.

Natasha looks at him thoughtfully.

‘You loved him very much.’

‘Yes.’ Steve says.

‘Anyway, this has been very interesting.’ Natasha puts her empty cup down. ‘James seems set on continuing with this project, so I won’t stop him. But if you hurt him again I will hurt you, in any and all ways that seem appropriate.’ She stands and Steve does too, unsteady on his feet.

‘Thank you,’ he says, not holding out a hand he’s sure she doesn’t want to take. ‘I’m very glad he has you as a friend. Thank you.’

Natasha pauses, looking at him, then nods and leaves.

Steve sits down at the table and buries his head in his hands and sobs, great wracking sobs.

Mingus’ trumpet wails with him.

\-----

James takes the subway out to Brooklyn. His apartment was in the Village. Somewhere new. But here he was tracing old paths.

Outside the building he briefly places his right hand over his heart, which flutters in the cage of his chest. His body remembers the last time he was here, leaving, bag slung over his shoulder.

Had he wanted Steve to come after him? When he shuts his eyes and remembers he wants that – wants to hear Steve’s footsteps behind him, panting breaths. _Bucky, Bucky I’m sorry, I love you, I love you_.

He swallows it down; stills his heart in its cage, stills his dreaming mind.

He uses the stairs ( _did you forget your puffer?_ ) that are still stained and ragged.

He knocks on the door.

Steve answers, smile hesitant. He’s in his painting clothes. A loose t-shirt and soft pants. In the old days he used to wear tights, but these pants are a loose cotton with cuffs.

‘Come in, James.’

They’re both nervous, of course. The table is still in the same place, piled with books. There are books all over the place. More shelves than there used to be. The couch is new – huge and ugly but long enough it looks like for Steve to lie down on. He always did like lying down on the couch.

‘Would you like a drink?’ Steve asked. ‘I brewed some coffee.’

James accepts, and Steve brings out two steaming cups. They head into the studio, where the afternoon light pours in like it always has.

Steve gestures to a chair set up. It’s comfortable, padded, with no arms.

‘Um, so what I’ve been doing is getting people to tell me their story – the story of how they came to get the prosthetic, wherever that starts for them.’ Steve settles himself down in his sketching chair, sketchbook leaning against the same sketching board on the same scratched desk. He is shy and hesitant and his hair falls across his eyes.

‘Basically I’m looking for a pose – as you tell the story.’ He fiddles with his pencils, checking them. His charcoals laid out as well. He already has a smudge on his cheek.

James aches.

Fuck.

He starts sitting upright, hand resting on his knees. Steve takes a breath and moves a pencil across the paper.

James feels Steve’s eyes on him – it was always like a touch when Steve drew him.

‘Wherever it starts for you.’

James takes a breath and closes his eyes.

‘I saw it, you know, your exhibition. The retrospective.’ It’s easy like this, with his eyes closed, with Steve drawing him. Steve always draws without judgement.

‘I saw the triptych and I remembered your first exhibition, how I wasn’t in any of the paintings.’ James’ body stays still, but his eyes flutter open. ‘But you did have a painting.’

Steve nods, eyes fixed on the drawing. ‘The other two were earlier ones, but I’d been working on the third painting all year. I just couldn’t finish it.’

James leans back against the chair and he slouches down a little, knees moving apart.

‘You finished it after, after you saw me in Texas, years after.’

Steve’s eyes flutter up to him, studying him, cataloguing the new position. ‘I had the sketch of you on your knees with the ropes. I’d even made a start sketching onto the canvas. I was just – I felt like –’ he turns back to the page.

‘Anyway, I saw the painting.’ James relaxes a little more; he tilts his head up to the ceiling.

‘After I left, I managed to leave the Hydroil job pretty quickly, because you had the prize money. But I was – I was pretty cut up. I started drinking a lot. Not on the rig, Gabe talked me out of that.’ He puts his arms behind his head and smiles a little. ‘He’s a good guy. I still see him sometimes. Trying to talk him into working for us.

‘Anyway, Brock –’ Steve makes a little noise in his throat, but James doesn’t look. He knew what a fuckwit he’d been, he doesn’t need to Steve’s face looking disappointed in him. ‘Brock had taken a liking to me because he discovered I could fight. And fight while drunk. We’d go out drinking, looking for trouble. Not the kind of trouble you used to find – defending people, standing up for what was right. Pointless trouble, pointless fights.

‘Sometimes we’d win, sometimes we’d lose. I fucked around a lot.’ This was it, he realises, this is his opportunity to let Steve see what a fuck up he was, that Steve had been right to stop loving him.

‘Brock liked setting me up with guys. I’d give them blowjobs in carparks, let them fuck me in the tray of their utes.’ Under the desert stars sometimes.

‘Under the desert stars sometimes.’ His eyes flutter closed again. This is Steve. He can say these things to Steve while he was drawing. Steve always drew without judgement.

‘Anyway, one night we were driving on the I35 towards Austin. We were both wasted. I think Brock has taken speed as well so he thought he was fine to drive. He flipped the truck. I woke up and someone was screaming. My arm was gone.’ He shifts forward, opening his eyes and resting his chin on his hands, elbows propped on his thighs. He meets Steve’s blue gaze directly.

‘I guess I thought I’d die and that would be okay.’ They’re both quiet, Steve’s hand flipping the page to capture this new position, a deep line between his eyebrows, his jaw clenching.

James thinks how once he could read Steve Rogers.

‘Brock was really badly burned.’ He buries his hands in his hair. ‘I saw him once in the hospital, but never again. He came looking for me once, but I think Natasha made him go away.’

‘She’s a good friend to you,’ Steve says, voice a little husky

‘Yeah, yeah. She was the one who made me okay with not having the arm. She retaught me to move, to balance, to hold myself. It just made sense. I was fine without the arm.’

James throws himself back again, sprawling his limbs and flexing his left arms, spreading the fingers wide.

‘Then I met fucking Tony Stark, and he was like _why don’t you have a prosthetic_. And I explained that I was just a dumb fuck who got into a car drunk with another drunk, and suddenly Tony is giving free arms to everyone who wants them.’ The arms whirs and purrs. ‘I mean, I guess it’s pretty cool, but I didn’t feel like I was missing anything. I had to learn it all over again. The balance, my body.’

He runs a metal finger along his flesh palm, contemplating.

‘But I felt like I should do it, because Tony seemed so keen, and I wanted other people to be able to choose.’

Steve makes a little sound again, and some charcoal rolls onto the floor.

James looks up and Steve’s groping on the floor, hiding his face. When he raises his head his cheeks are pink.

‘I guess that’s it,’ James says, even though he knows he hasn’t confessed properly.

Steve sits back, tracing a finger across the page, turning the charcoal in his other hand.

‘Thanks James.’ Steve looks up and smiles slowly and sadly, like a benediction James doesn’t deserve.

They stand and carry the cups back to the kitchen. There’s a fancy filter machine and a grinder now, and tea tins James recognizes from Natasha’s stash.

Suddenly questions are crowding in as James sees the _English Breakfast_ label.

‘Are you – are you still with Peggy?’ he tries to sound casual.

Steve blinks at him. ‘No, no we broke up.’

He frowns. ‘I guess we were together when I saw you that time in Austin. I went to England with her not long after that, but it just –’ he waves a hand ‘– didn’t work out.’

James nods. It’s strange. Right from the start he’d imagined that Steve would be with Peggy, be happy, be in the perfect, shiny relationship he deserved. But it had taken much longer than he thought for them to get together. Then it hadn’t lasted.

‘I didn’t like England. Except for the tea.’ He gestures at his tins.

‘You and Natasha both.’

Steve gives a tight smile and James groans.

‘She visited you didn’t she?’

Steve gives him an earnest look. ‘She’s a good friend to you, James.’

James licks his lips and smiles.

‘You should drop by Mrs Miller’s place,’ Steve says. ‘She misses you.’

‘Because there’s no one to fix her plumbing anymore?’ James raises an eyebrow. ‘You were always her favorite.’

‘Yeah,’ Steve smiles. ‘But you always looked after me, and she loved you for that.’

So James knocks on her door on the way down. And there she is, a little smaller, a little less color in her face, but still narrowing her eyes at him.

‘James Barnes, well I never.’

She’s disappointed he’s not back for good, not back with Steve.

‘That boy doesn’t know what’s good for him. No one to keep him in line.’

They eat biscuits in the kitchen and she finds a drawer for him to fix.

\-----

Steve is restless before James’ sitting. _James_. Steve knows a part of him still whispers Bucky, but he tries so hard to use the name James has chosen.

Becca had sent him a message the other day. _Take care of him_.

Steve feels uniquely unqualified for that job.

Somehow Natasha had his number now too, and sent him cryptic messages that were either thinly veiled threats or tea recommendations. He feels like if he had met her under other circumstances they might have been friends.

On their run the other morning Sam had asked how the session with James had gone. Steve’s breath had started to catch in his throat and he’d had to stop, bending over with his hands on his knees.

‘He told me –’ Steve struggled with the self-loathing that rose with the bile in his throat. ‘He told me about how it was for him after we broke up. It was –’ a shuddering breath ‘– awful. It was like he blamed himself for this fucked up situation, like he thought he’d been _bad_ because he was drinking too much and fucking too much, with people who were clearly just _taking advantage_ of him.’ Steve was choked up with anger he’d had to fight down in the session.

He felt so powerless. Wanted to strangle Brock Rumlow, beat the shit out of all those fuckwits that had taken _his Bucky –_ no, no, not his, not Bucky.

Sam rubbed soothing circles on his back.

‘We really thought we knew it all, back then, hey?’ Sam said, leading them over to sit under a tree. ‘I remember thinking how clear it was that he was doing wrong by you by not being there for your treatment. But he was just trying to do right by you, like we all were.’

‘Only he really knew what a fucking stubborn idiot I was.’ Steve rested his head against the tree. ‘I’m at the point where I _want_ him to be mad at me so I can _really_ apologise. But it’s like he can’t see that I did anything wrong.’

‘Maybe there’s more to all this than we’re seeing Steve. And it’s his life now. He doesn’t owe you anything.’ Sam pressed his shoulder into Steve.

And now James is coming over again. And Steve has to maybe get him to take his shirt off. Fuck.

He’d gone to the club last night, and spent a lot of time with Laura. He likes Laura. She’s older than him, and sort of solid in herself. She submits so beautifully and blissfully, cries ripping out of her, murmured please on her lips. Then afterwards she’ll cuddle up and laugh when he wraps her in blankets and feeds her chocolate and water.

She’s married but her husband isn’t into domination, so she comes to the club and goes home and has _lovely vanilla sex_ with him. And he’s fine with it. Steve finds himself astounded, unable to understand something that’s not the intense everything he had with Bucky or the shameful shutting down he’d had from Peggy.

 _Your Bucky sounds delightful_ , she said to him one night. So last night he talked about the weird way _James_ has come back to him and she sighs and pats his cheek.

It was good but his skin still itches as he waits for James.

Then he’s there, at the door, in soft sweatpants and a tank top with a hoodie over it, like Steve had asked. This time they sit at the table first with their coffees, and James makes fun of his expensive hipster beans.

‘So,’ Steve says. ‘Today I was going to work on sketching the prosthetic, and your body.’ He can feel himself blushing like a teenager, not a serious grown up artist.

‘You can, um, stay in the tank top if that’s more comfortable.’

‘But it would be better with it off?’ James raises an eyebrow, eyes cool.

Steve nods, accepting that he’s just going to embarrass himself continually around James.

‘Well, you’ve seen most of it before,’ James says with a small smile. ‘Might look a bit worse for wear is all.’

Steve is certain James will look as beautiful as he ever did, sprawled naked in the studio in the afternoon light. But he doesn’t say that.

When they get into the studio, James strips off the hoodie and the tank top and then slips his sweatpants down. He’s standing in black boxer briefs in Steve’s studio.

He is beautiful. His body is different now – not bulked out by heavy labour but not the soft muscles made for dancing when he was barely more than a boy. Instead his body is lean lines, ropy muscles of his solid thighs, his chest and shoulders supple and defined. The trail of hair between his pectoral muscles and the scatter of dark curls across his chest. The dusting of hairs leading down from his navel. Then where his arm meets the prosthetic a web of scars - puckered, pink and white, like his arms had been torn off him.

Steve pushes down the coil of desire in his stomach - to touch, to soothe, to - and puts on his artist eyes. _That’s not for you now_. And James hasn’t mentioned it but Steve hopes that he has found someone to touch him with all the affection and reverence he deserves.

‘Sitting again?’ James asks.

Steve shrugs. ‘Whatever’s comfortable for you. Sitting or standing.’

James wanders over and perches on the window ledge, looking out down into the alley, across the rooftops.

‘Do you want me to tell you another story?’ he smiles.

Steve sets up with his pencils, wanting to work on details today.

‘If you want to – but we can stay quiet too.’

And they do stay silent for a while. Steve focuses in on the arm first. James has it stretched out, resting on the window ledge, almost like he knows what Steve wants to see. After a while, he crosses his arms across his chest, giving Steve a sense of how the joints move, how it fits with the other arm.

He doesn’t really notice James’ face, how it settles into a frown, how grief starts to gather in the silence between them.

‘I have a story.’ James says softly, moving to the chair and sitting back in the position he had assumed the other day – upright, hands on his knees.

‘When I was working for Hydroil, the second time, I had a different boss. Not that asshole Schmidt.’ Steve watched James’ hands – they both still rested relaxed and unmoving on his legs. Steve focused on them to tamp down his old anger stirring dustily in his gut.

‘Brock was still there. Still the same asshole. You know, the homophobic stuff – _faggot_ etcetera.’ The metal hand waves in the air, as if dismissing all of that as nothing. _It’s not nothing, it’s not nothing_. Steve grips his pencil and quickly sketches the motion of the wave.

‘Pierce wasn’t around much at first. But then –’. A new dread starts to rise in Steve as he sketches James’ face – his eyes shuttering and the animation retreating from his chiselled face, making him seem like a statue. ‘He asked me into his office, and he – he knew me. He knew I couldn’t lose the job, knew I liked – liked to be – _humiliated_.’ James spat the word out with sudden venom – but venom at _himself_.

Steve dropped his pencil.

‘He’d get me into his office, down on my knees. He’d touch me, squeeze my arm and leave bruises, squeeze my throat so I couldn’t breathe.’

Their eyes meet and James’ face falls and his voice, so strong until now, wavers and cracks.

‘I’m sorry Steve, I know it was wrong, I know. But I couldn’t, I couldn’t say no, not until you were okay.’

And in that moment Steve sees everything, the horror of what Bucky had endured alone, chokes on his own guilt, then chokes it _down_ because he’s not what matters now.

He stands and steps forward and crouches before Bucky his hands outstretched, but not touching, he might not be welcome to touch.

‘Bucky – James – you have nothing to be sorry for. It’s not your fault. He abused you Bucky. It’s not your fault.’ James’ breath is coming quick and rapid, his eyes are full of tears.

Steve keeps his hands extended, palms up.

‘You didn’t have any choice James – you loved me and you wanted to save me. It’s not your fault.’

‘But I,’ James’ breath hitches, ‘I liked it sometimes, that feeling that he was controlling me, I was nothing.’

Steve is crying a little himself, tears running down through his beard. ‘That doesn’t mean you asked for it, James. It doesn’t make it your fault. It was his fault.’

And James is falling into his open arms and Steve is holding him to his chest and they’re both crying.

Eventually, though, they both subside and James raises his head.

‘I’ve never told anyone,’ his voice is quiet.

Steve lets go of him as they both get to their feet.

‘I thought you’d hate me for it. I thought you knew somehow.’

‘I didn’t know, and I would never blame you for that James.’ Steve lets his anger settle into his clenched fists and keeps his voice calm and gentle.

‘I think I might need to go home now.’ James says. Steve turns away to let him dress, suddenly aware how vulnerable and exposed James is.

James leaves quietly, and Steve just touches him on the arm. He wants to say _I still love you_ which is the follow up to _it’s not your fault_ but that’s not for him anymore.

He wants to say sorry again, but more this time, sorrier, but he thinks maybe it’s not time for that. And if it never is that’s okay. This isn’t about him.

After James leaves he messages Natasha and says _I think he needs you right now_.

Once, they were everything to each other, but Steve gave that all away. He has to trust James to the help of others now.

\----

When James gets home he’s cold and shaking. Natasha is there with blankets that aren’t James’ and warm, sweet, milky chai.

He sits quietly for a while, wrapped up and sipping the hot tea.

‘When I worked in the desert,’ he says finally, ‘there was a man.’

After he tells her Natasha wraps him in the fiercest hug.

‘It’s not your fault James. I love you,’ she says, and presses her lips to his hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have become aware that one of the stresses of writing a fic is that you start to worry about letting down your characters and your readers😂. Honestly though with this story the process of the characters takes me a little by surprise sometimes. I just had this realisation after the previous chapter that even though a lot of readers were angry at Steve, Bucky still didn't blame him for anything. Why is that? I asked myself.
> 
> And this chapter is what I found. 
> 
> BUT I reiterate that I am open to all comments and criticisms. As in, even if you're like - I hate this story and I'm going to stop reading it I WILL BE OKAY WITH YOU TELLING ME. I like knowing what you think, whatever that is.
> 
> Or, come and talk to me on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/stuckyflangst) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/powerfulowl2)
> 
> I love chats about fanfiction.
> 
> Coming up next: more Tony and Pepper, some Sam and Bucky. Lots of Bucky feels. But healing feels.


	8. We make a little history, baby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I realised the whole timeline got a bit out of my control in this story. I worked out I'd definitely made it to 2020, but I did not want to deal with The Pandemic. 
> 
> So, consider this an alternate 2020. I stress this is not a story about politics, but in the end Steve and Bucky had to interact a bit with the world, and the whole medical system destroying their lives was pretty significant.
> 
> Also, I have noticed a couple of continuity errors, so if you spot one please feel free to let me know! I'll do a tidy up at some point. But I thank you, my loyal readers, who have forgiven me and pressed on.

_We make a little history, baby_   
_Every time you come around_

_You’re really gone. It’s so quiet in here. I look at the painting of you I never finished._

\-----

James watches the hologram of his arm moving and twisting in the air as Tony fiddles with the wiring. Sometimes he thinks that this is how the arm feels – an object in the distance separate to him. Despite being attached to his body for almost a year now it’s not _him_ yet.

Tony sighs and stretches. He’s very into _dexterity_ at the moment. The legs, he says, are easier, because we don’t expect so much fine motor work from our toes.

‘Barnes,’ Tony says, spinning the tiny screwdriver through his fingers. ‘Do you hate the arm?’

James turns his head and blinks, meeting Tony’s narrowed eyes.

‘Hate it? No, of course not.’ He wiggles the fingers of his right hand, the left strangely dead an unresponsive.

‘But you didn’t want it.’ Tony flips the screwdriver and catches it. Dum-E scoots around his legs, as if anticipating needing to catch the tool.

James kicks his legs a little. He’s dressed in sweatpants and a tank top, feet bare. Sometimes he ends up sitting for hours in the lab. He’s come to like it over time – Tony muttering, the robots humming and trundling about, the whir of machinery and dry interjections from JARVIS.

‘Look, Tony, I know you’ve become weirdly concerned about my level of consent to the arm, but I don’t hate it, and I was happy to be a guinea pig.’

Tony picks up another screwdriver and starts absentmindedly juggling them.

‘I know I haven’t–’ James huffs out a little breath, feeling the swell of emotion rising in his chest that has become so frequent and familiar in the past few weeks, like an irregular tide tugged by a wandering moon. ‘I know I haven’t _accepted_ the arm like some of the others have. But–’ he breaks off again.

And there it all is rising inside his chest – the things he’s learning to give names to. Grief, pain, anger, longing. Sharp and clear as the desert stars, some of them, or stinging like sand. Others warm like the embrace of a summer night, enfolding him in darkness and a strange kind of comfort.

He licks his lips. ‘Not having an arm made sense to me, because I was missing – other things. I had lost things’ – _someone, myself_ – ‘and it made sense to have a space by my side.’

Tony stilled, hands by his sides.

‘You offering the arm, offering to make something so amazing for me – the only way I could convince myself it made sense was to see it as a favor I was doing for other people. Not for me.’ James tucks his hair behind his ears and stares up at the hologram shimmering, perfect, beautiful. Not for him.

‘I’m working on it. Working on thinking it could be for me.’

James feels strangely exposed. Talking about emotions to Tony Stark is not really a scenario he had imagined before.

Tony himself looks slightly disconcerted by the turn of events, ad Dum-E bumps his shins a few times.

There’s a slightly awkward silence.

‘I used to want to be an engineer you know,’ James says, looking down at the arm – the complex internal circuits open and vulnerable.

‘Really?’ Tony says. ‘I guess no one dreams of being a risk consultant when they’re a kid.’

James smiles. ‘Yeah. I got the marks to get in, but my parents disowned me, so I couldn’t afford the fees. Me and –’ he stops. ‘My partner at the time had a lot of health problems. My parents didn’t approve. Anyway, I wound up getting a job down south on a rig. I guess I liked machinery.’

Tony tilts his head a little, obviously processing the complexities of existence when you’re not a genius and the son of a billionaire.

‘Anyway, the point is I like the arm. It’s very cool, but I have a lot of emotional issues to process because I can fully accept it as part of myself,’ James raises an eyebrow at Tony.

‘I feel you there,’ Tony spins the screwdriver. ‘Is the art thing helping with that?’

And not the smell of the desert this time, not the smell of an airconditioned demountable and the squeak of expensive leather shoes, the rustle of linen and the scent of cologne, but the smell of paint and coffee, car fumes filtering through windows open to the muggy summer air.

‘Ummm,’ James runs his right hand through his hair.

 _I know I’m one to talk_ , Natasha said to him, stroking his head, _but you don’t have to hold it all in that box inside you heart, James._

‘So, Steve is kind of my ex-husband.’

Tony stares at him.

‘By kind of I mean is, in fact, my ex-husband. The partner I mentioned with the health problems. Who my parents disapproved of.’

Tony throws the screwdriver over his shoulder and DUM-E beeps in distress and chases after it.

‘So I gave you an arm you feel _ambivalent_ about and now you _ex-husband_ is painting it – you – whatever? Why did you break up? Is he a jerk? This is the whole reason I had that stupid voting system, Barnes! You are a ridiculous man!’ Tony waves his hands and paces in a circle.

James feels a little sheepish, but also strangely fond of Tony.

‘He’s not a jerk, really. Well,’ James breathes deeply and closes his eyes. _You just – you haven’t been here Bucky. And I know it was for me, you did it for me, but I still blame you for not being here_. ‘Okay, he was a bit of a jerk to me, but he’s not – he’s sorry about it.’

He is, James thinks, he is sorry. _It’s not your fault_. He doesn’t blame me for kneeling, for not saying no.

Tears spring to his eyes a little and Tony paces another few circles.

‘You promise,’ Tony asks. ‘You promise it’s okay.’

‘Yeah, Tony, I promise,’ James says, a little husky, but smiling. He used to be a crier, years ago. Always crying in movies. Steve holding his hand. Maybe he could be again.

Dum-E holds out the screwdriver and Tony takes it, turning his attention back to the arm with a scowl on his face.

After a few minutes of silence Tony starts explaining what he’s doing, showing in the arm and on the schematics how the circuits mimic the operation of nerves, how they translate the signals from James’ brain.

 _It is a part of you_. James thinks this is Tony’s way of telling him.

\-----

_It’s summer and I keep dreaming about you naked. I want to draw you but I think I’m not allowed to do that anymore. I wake up aching. Instead I drew a picture of Guillermo sitting outside the bodega. I think his belly is even bigger this year_

_This year_

_I wonder where you are every day_

_Will it always_

_[Sketch of a small man with a rounded belly lounging shirtless in a chair wearing shorts. His face is peaceful, turned up to where you know the sun is shining]_

_\-----_

Steve has been drawing tendons for hours. He’s staring at his hands trying to disassemble himself into component parts.

There’s a knock at the door and his body jerks – nervous system dialed up from too much self-examination.

He swings the door open and there’s Natasha, svelte and poised, face blank.

But Steve’s nerves sing out to the tight line of her jaw under her soft skin, the quiver of her loosely coiled fist.

‘Come in,’ he says. She stands and watches as he makes a pot of lemon balm tea. Neither of them says anything.

Steve clears a space at the table. Natasha casts an eye across the elbows, knees, hands, toes, shoulders, hips, necks, fingers as she takes a seat.

‘Studies,’ Steve waves a hand vaguely. ‘I’m trying to understand how Tony sees these – how he translates it into the prosthetics.’

Looking at Natasha – her red hair pulled into a smooth ponytail, light burgundy sweater with speckles of blue cocooning her slight frame, hanging long over a pair of black leggings – he feels like a mess. He hasn’t showered in several days. His hair is probably thirty percent paint by this point. He’s wearing shorts and an ancient Texas Longhorns t-shirt that was probably Bucky’s once.

 _James_. But the t-shirt, the t-shirt was Bucky’s. Bucky who had loved him; who was lost to him now.

Natasha pours them both tea and stirs honey into hers. Steve slumps in the chair opposite her.

‘I’m worried I didn’t say the right thing to him,’ she says quietly, watching the spoon make slow circles in the teacup.

‘What did you say?’ Steve asks, running a hand across his face.

‘That it wasn’t his fault. That I loved him.’ Natasha puts the spoon down and takes a sip of tea. Her face is impassive as ever, but her breath trembles across the surface of the liquid.

‘I’m glad he has you, to love him,’ Steve says, taking the honey.

Natasha hums softly. ‘Tell me about the two of you,’ she says.

So Steve does. Tells her about the boys who followed him from school and cornered him in an alley, and Bucky appearing silhouetted against the light. Steve’s mum patching them both up and Bucky staying for dinner. The first time anyone had ever stayed over at Steve’s.

How many ways Bucky was over the years – the cool kid smoking by the back fence, the jock on the track team, the charmer with the girls, the theater kid shining up on stage in _West Side Story_. Bucky was so many things, and all the time Steve was the same – small and angry and sick.

Bucky reaching out to touch him as they curled together in Steve’s bed. _Stevie, it’s okay if you don’t but I – I really like you – like –_ a hand trailing across Steve’s shoulder up is throat to touch his lips so softly. And what terror and longing bloomed in Steve – _he won’t want you forever but now, now, now –_

Steve’s body slow and sluggish to move – not able to match the quick heat of his heart. But for Bucky he could whisper his most secret desires, show him what made the warmth coil in his belly even as his cock barely stirred.

Bucky’s parents had hated Steve – his surly frown and stubborn opinions. His _illness_. Their James shone like the sun and Steve was nothing but a sickly shadow. _Bucky no, I’m not worth it. You got into Columbia, Bucky, MIT, you could do anything_.

When they married in the Autumn it was almost nothing – a final flourish. By then they were everything to one another, had given everything to one another.

‘Then _I_ changed,’ Steve says. ‘I got all this,’ he gestures at his body. ‘It all got messed up.’

They sit in silence for a little while.

‘Can I see your paintings?’ Natasha asks. ‘The ones you’re working on?’

She stays for a couple of hours. Watches Steve paint for a while. Makes more tea.

Afterwards, Steve takes a shower and calls Sam. Natasha sorted the piles of drawings into body part and marked the best ones with a small cross in the corner.

\-----

_I wonder if you have a dog now. I like to think you met someone and you live in a big house in the suburbs and have a porch and a dog and maybe you’re thinking about kids. And you’re happy and sometimes you think about me but it doesn’t hurt_

_Not like when I_

_[Sketch of a golden retriever catching a frisbee in its mouth, suspended in the air and twisting with joy]_

\-----

James is walking from the subway to Steve’s place. It’s spring, and there’s a certain restless energy on the streets.

People want things. It’s an election year. Black Lives Matters protests rolling across the country. The world. There’s stuff happening in the world. And James feels _interested_ in it.

He climbs up the stairs to Steve’s apartment, pondering about what he could _do_. Could he _do_ something?

He knocks on the door and there’s a muffled shout and some thumping and the door swings open.

‘What the fuck Steve?’ James says. And it’s _instinct_ – it could be 10 years ago, 15 years ago. Because Steve fucking Rogers is standing there with his eye swelling, his shirt torn, holding another shirt to his face which is _bleeding_.

‘They were Nazis, James,’ Steve replies. And his eyes widen a little, as if surprised at himself.

Because if that isn’t instinct too. _They were racist, Bucky. They were sexist pigs, Bucky. They supported the war, Bucky. They were homophobic, Bucky._

James hustles Steve backwards towards the bathroom. Steve complies, letting James steer him to sit on the toilet seat. James bangs through the cupboards and finds the first aid kit. When he makes Steve pull the t-shirt off his face there’s a cut on his cheekbone and his lip is split.

James washes the cuts down with disinfectant and then get Steve to put pressure on them with sterile swabs while he goes to hunt down an icepack. Steve predictably has several in the freezer.

Steve is still sitting docilely on the toilet seat, accepting James’ ministrations with surprising good grace. He even smiles (then winces) when James hands him the icepack. Steve holds it to his swelling eye as James dresses his cheek.

The room is crowded with memories of Steve sitting right here, angry and grumbling, pushing Bucky’s hands away and saying _I’m fine, James_.

‘Old Steve would have been complaining a lot more,’ James says, without thinking. Then pauses, his gut lurching.

Steve just gives a little hum. ‘Old Steve didn’t know how good he had it.’

James feels his cheeks heat up and fusses over the sink, wetting a face cloth and handing it to Steve, who puts the icepack down and wipes off his face.

James washes his hands, not making eye contact and they both shuffle out of the bathroom.

Steve goes into the bedroom and comes out a couple of minutes later, pulling on a faded blue t-shirt.

James is standing near the table, looking over piles of sketches of body parts, not really seeing them. Pretending he doesn’t see the flash of Steve’s stomach – the smooth, pale skin; the jut of his hipbones.

‘Sorry, James,’ Steve says. ‘I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.’ He runs his hands through his hair then makes a face. ‘I’m trying to, um, be more honest with you.’

James looks at him, feeling his face pull into a frown and a tightening in his throat.

‘I feel like you were pretty honest with me, Steve. Then. Back then.’ Words lodge thick in his mouth and he struggles to get them out. Is this how they’re going to do this? Now?

James looks at Steve. His face is swelling and he’s sweaty and dirty. Where had he even been? Maybe a protest. Or maybe he just ran into some guys on the street. But he’s standing there with his arms hanging loose by his side, palms turned out a little. He looks straight at James – his face saying it’s up to James what they do. Do this now. Do this at all.

‘You were – you were so mad at me. For lying. You were honest about that. About not wanting me anymore.’ James’ breath is quick in his chest. He stares at Steve’s collarbone, which is strong and broad.

‘No I wasn’t James.’ Steve’s voice is soft. Not like before. If he called him _James_ back then it was because Steve was mad, or grumpy. ‘I wasn’t honest with you.’

James raises his eyes to meet Steve’s. His right eye is swelling shut, but his left is clear and open, framed by those long, thick lashes. Trembling.

‘I was mad, it’s true. But mostly I was ungrateful, ungracious.’ Steve’s body is still, except for his chest which rises and falls quickly, matching James’ own. ‘You had given me everything, and then you gave me even more. I resented your sacrifice for me. I didn’t deserve it. I knew I didn’t deserve it.’

James made a noise of protest – instinct again to say _you’re worth it to me, Stevie, you’re everything to me, you deserve the world_.

‘But that’s not even the point, right?’ Steve smiles sadly. ‘The point is you gave gifts and I was too worried, too mean, to accept them as they were given – with love and grace and an open heart. I didn’t know how good I had it.’ Steve raises his hand slightly, and James feels a tug at his cheek, as if his body knows Steve wants to touch him.

‘We could spend a long time trying to account for it all – what things were right and what were wrong.’ Steve drops his hand again. ‘But I just want to say that. And that I’m trying to do better, now, with the world.’

James can hear the way their breath matches, their skin sings.

‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘Thank you.’

Steve smiles more broadly, then winces again at the cut on his lips.

‘Why don’t you have a shower,’ James suggests. ‘I’ll make coffee and then you can tell me about the Nazis. I feel like you’re not going to manage any work this afternoon.’

They still sit in the studio, though, because the light is nice there in the afternoon.

\-----

_I’m going to stop writing to you. Peggy thinks it’s strange and I guess it is. I do love her. She’s beautiful and warm and fiery. She cares so much about the world_

_I just wish_

_I promise I’m not_

_I could never_

_[sketch of the curve of a neck bending forward, each vertebra defined]_

\-----

Steve is mostly working out of the studio at Stark Tower now. It’s a huge room with space for the large canvasses he’s working on. But James still comes to the apartment. The painting of him is, inevitably, more personal, smaller and deeper in scale. Steve’s just going with it at this point.

It is what it is.

Summer’s building up and he’s been going to a lot of protests with Sam. It’s good for him. To provide support, not push himself to the front all the time.

He pours black coffee over ice for James when he arrives and hunts out a tube of condensed milk. James hair is getting longer and Steve traces the curve of his neck, the tendrils of hair escaping his bun, damp and curling.

He’s wearing shorts today and Steve can name the muscles in his thighs, his calves, and his fingers itch to paint what’s beyond the words – how beautifully and perfectly they fit together under that smooth, golden skin.

James looks down at a card on the bench and touches it with a finger. Steve glances at it and blushes a little. It’s just a creamy business card with a phone number and _Floor 8_ printed in black Helvetica. But James would know what it was.

‘Do you still, um –’ James touches the card.

Steve blushes a little. Though why he should blush for James of all people. Fuck. Now he’s thinking about James pink-fleshed, naked, sweating –

‘Yes. Um.’ Steve sips his ice coffee and sighs. Honesty. ‘Peggy wasn’t into the whole thing. She um, actually sort of thought that I was into _dominance_ because I was so small and powerless, and because I was bigger by the time we got together she thought I shouldn’t – want that.’

James was looking at him, blue eyes steady, head tilted slightly to the side.

Steve cleared his throat and took a deep breath.

‘I mean, it was easier for me to just, um, have, you know–’ 

‘Vanilla sex?’ James says, sounding slightly amused, stirring his condensed milk in.

‘Yeah,’ Steve nods, laughing a little. ‘I could get it up no problem by then. And it was nice.’ Steve is aware of what a condemnation that sounds like, and to be fair to Peggy it was nice, really nice.

‘It’s just, wanting other stuff didn’t just go away. But I felt really – uncomfortable. With my new body, and what it meant.’

James wasn’t looking at him now, and Steve knew that he was thinking about that last time they had sex. It was so fucking hot. Even now Steve felt a stirring in his gut just thinking about it. But he had been so _ashamed_ of unleashing his new, strong body on Bucky’s flesh like that. Fuck.

‘But after things ended with Peggy. Which wasn’t because of the sex. Well–’ _honesty_ ‘–not just because of the sex.’

No. Steve stares at the bench. In the kitchen that was his mothers. Where he’s lived his whole life. It was that in the end Steve was too small for Peggy. Missed New York too much. Was uncompromising in the wrong ways, at the wrong moments.

'Peggy just - she believed in _institutions._ She thought you could join the system, change it. But what did she end up doing? Working in expensive hospitals, working at research institutions. She'd take me to events, talk about my art as _social change_ to rich people who didn't _know_.' Steve sighed.

'It seemed like we shared a world view, you know? But in the end there was something there that didn't quite fit. She was so _driven_. And it turned out I wasn't, really.' Steve gestures around at the small apartment, the simple kitchen. 

‘It’s funny,’ James says, pushing himself up to sit on the bench, swinging his legs. ‘That time I saw you in Austin, you said you and Peggy had been together for what – six months?’ Steve stares at him, seeing for the first time since he saw James at the art show the lines of the warm, loose-limbed Bucky who would sit on Sarah Rogers’ bench while she was baking and steal cake batter from the bowl with his fingers, laughing when Sarah batted him with a spoon.

‘I was so surprised. In my head I’d convinced myself that you were in love with Peggy already. That you would have got together with her as soon as the divorce papers went through.’ James shakes his head. ‘I thought I was doing you a favor.’

Steve leans on the bench and fiddles with the Floor 8 card.

‘I guess it’s good to know that all the stupid wasn’t on my side.’

And James laughs full and throaty and Steve thrills with it, cheeks warming.

James taps the card. ‘So this.’

‘Yeah, after I came back from the UK I decided to – try out _the scene_. I started going to a club – not this one. This is just a card someone gave me the other night.’

‘How was it?’ James seems genuinely curious. Steve wonders what he’s done, over the years. James will tell him, if he wants to.

‘It was – is – really great. I’ve made some good friends, tried new things.’ Steve shrugs. ‘It helped me feel like this body was mine, that I was still Steve Rogers.’

James looks a little sad for a moment, swirling the ice cubes in the bottom of his glass.

But that’s okay. It is a bit sad. What happened to them.

‘Shall we get to work?’ Steve suggests, taking their glasses.

‘Sure,’ James smiles at him. ‘You gonna paint me like one of your French girls?’ It’s an old joke, but Steve ducks his head and chews his lip.

‘Well, now that you mention it.’

James laughs again and Steve waves a hand at him.

‘Shut up, I’m serious. I think your piece would work better if you were naked. Tastefully.’

‘Sure, Rogers. Tasteful is your middle name.’

But he agrees and seems to comfortable as he strips in the studio, stands relaxed, arms behind his head, the sunlight glinting of his left arm and painting the rest of him golden, his eyes closed as Steve works to capture the perfection of where his leg joins his hip, his arm joins his shoulder.

\-----

_I finished the painting of you. I see now how hurt you were that there were no paintings of you in the exhibition. I should have told you I was trying._

_But how could I tell you I_

_[Sketch of a tree twisted like ropes against the sky]_

\-----

James sees the meeting invite on Facebook. _The US medical system is killing everyone but the rich_.

He looks at it thoughtfully, sitting at his desk in his office at home. His shirt sleeves are rolled up and his collar unbuttoned. He’d had a meeting today with some douchebag from a chemicals company that wanted to ‘manage the risk’ that they would poison the water supplies of nearby towns. Which turned out to mean manage the risk they would be sued, not actually try to prevent it from happening.

They were not destined to be clients of Romanov & Associates.

He has more than he ever thought possible. Has a free arm from Tony Stark. An apartment in the Village. But he knows he would trade all of that to be wrapped up in a pair of bony arms feeling the strongest heart in the world flutter against his back.

The US medical system didn’t kill him, but it did steal his love away.

James goes to the meeting. There are speakers and one of them is a Sam Wilson, who talks about how he worked for years as a physiotherapist in a very expensive, exclusive clinic and then one day realized that his grandfather was living, uncomplaining, with chronic back pain. His disks had degenerated so much his spine needed to be fused.

‘And I knew, looking at the x-rays, that it could have been prevented by a few simple, regular daily exercises. And now he was going to have an operation which would clean out his retirement savings and mean he couldn’t move to Florida like he’d always dreamed.

‘And the worst thing?’ Sam paused and looked over the audience, briefly catching James’ eye. ‘I was trained to help people like him. But if regular medical care like seeing a GP, or having surgery to save your life, is out of the price range of a lot of people, _allied_ health services that prevent problems or reduce pain, aren’t even on most people’s radars.

‘So now I’m part of a co-op that’ trying to make these services available, alongside GPs and nurses, to everyone. But it’s hard. Harder than it should be.’

By the end of the evening James’ name is on a volunteer list and he’s signed quite a large check and he’s feeling angry. But good, wholesome anger. Like he assumes Steve feels when he punches Nazis.

‘Hi James.’ He turns and Sam’s standing there.

‘Hi Sam.’ James holds out his right hand and Sam shakes. ‘Really good event.’

‘I see you’ve opened the checkbook,’ Sam nods to the table. ‘Thanks a lot. It means a lot in a year like this, you know.’

James smiles. ‘I’m not so good with the protests these days. Make me a bit anxious. But this I can handle.’

‘Would you like to grab a coffee or something?’

James hesitates for a moment. But Sam’s face is looking like he maybe has something to say and James takes a deep breath and practices opening himself up to the world a little more.

‘Sure,’ he smiles. ‘You know anywhere around here.’

In the end they go to a diner that has ‘healthy’ smoothies. Though Bucky’s is called an Elvis and involves coconut milk, peanut butter, cocoa and banana and taste suspiciously good for a health smoothie.

Sam thoughtfully sucks his Berry Delightful through a straw.

‘It really is great you came, you know. I’ve been thinking a lot about Stark’s free prosthetic offer. It’s just nuts, right? Like, he’s just giving away for free not only the prosthetics, but the operations, the follow up. The insurance companies are going nuts.’

‘Yeah,’ James agrees. ‘Only Tony Stark could do it really. You need money, no fear and no shame.’

‘And the arm’s good?’ Sam looks curiously and James reaches his hand across the table, moving it so the plates shift and whisper.

‘It’s great, and it’s only getting better. And there’s no budget models.’

Sam motions with his hand and James nods. Sam touches gently, grinning.

‘You know, the other part of the story I didn’t tell tonight is when I realized how much it cost you and Steve for him to go through the program.’

Sam pulls his hand away and looks James directly in the eyes.

‘I thought I was just helping Steve express his emotions better.’

‘He always was kind of shit at that,’ James quirks his mouth a little.

‘Yeah,’ Sam shakes his head. ‘He really fucking missed you, and he was always so angry. Then after he found out about your second job. I fancied myself a bit of an amateur counselor I guess. I thought he needed to explain why he was angry at you.’

James shrugged. ‘I mean, I did lie to him.’

‘Yeah, but it wasn’t a _personal_ thing right. It was ultimately a result of the system. You had a job and insurance, but you still had to work two jobs so Steve had a chance of surviving past thirty? It’s the lie of personal choice that makes us not blame the people who are really responsible.’ Sam gives an angry suck on his straw.

‘I see why you and Steve are friends,’ James grins. ‘Do you fight Nazis with him as well?’

Sam laughs, delightful and gap-toothed. ‘He told me you had to patch him up. I think he liked it.’ Sam winks and James blushes a little.

‘Look, I know you two have more history than is respectable outside a romance novel, but I will just say that I was young and foolish back then, and did not appreciate at all how many emotions Steve Rogers keeps packed inside that inarticulate heart of his. I’m sorry if my intervention contributed to Steve being more idiotic than he would have otherwise.’

Sam’s words are light, but his forehead gathers a little and his mouth turns down.

‘I’m glad you were there for him, for the rest of it,’ James says. ‘And now.’

Sam smiles again, gentler this time, and pats James on the shoulder.

On their way out they talk about James approaching Pepper – _she’s the one you really need onside_ – and swap numbers before they part.

 _We were all young and foolish back then_ , James thinks as he walks the long way home, feeling memories of dark alleys, dirty pickup trays pressing on his mind like the humid air against his skin.

When he gets home Natasha is there, and she turns the air-conditioning on cold so they can wrap up in blankets on the couch and drink hot chocolate.

\-----

_There’s something wrong with me I still dream of you tied to the bed_

\-----

Steve somehow now has a regular yoga and tea date with Natasha. She brings over her yoga mat and they set up in Steve’s living room and she calls the poses.

She complains about summer, and he thinks it’s because she can’t wear her beloved knitted sweaters. He doesn’t know how she copes with Texas.

He tells her about the youth center, and takes her to an exhibition of sculptures by one of the kids – not a kid anymore – who took Steve’s classes for years. At the exhibition Cooper reminisces about the time they stabbed Steve in the arm and Steve laughs and shows Natasha the scar.

She gives Steve an odd look.

The following week he’s telling her about how some of the current crop of kids are being hassled out about doing the art and cooking classes, and a few of them are worried about coming because a group of older kids cornered them and beat them round a bit.

And suddenly on Thursday there’s Natasha volunteering to run a self-defense class twice a week.

They don’t really talk about James, which is a surprise to Steve at first. He wonders if she’s monitoring him, making sure he doesn’t try anything with James.

But after a couple of months he accepts that she’s just there for tea and yoga and criticizing his fighting style after the third time he manages to get them into a fight with a bunch of MAGA-cap-wearing dickheads.

The weekly sittings have ended, and he doesn’t see James much. He’s sad, and still wakes up cock erect and leaking from fever dreams where James is bound and gagged and weeping so beautifully for him, like he has for years now. But he decides to stop feeling ashamed about it.

As he works in the studio on his painting he focuses on the points of transition in James’ body – his joints, his eyelids, the edges of his mouth. The view through the window behind him of the desert under a blue sky. Through the skylight above the stars. And off to the side the New York skyline. Under his feet the wooden, paint-stained floor. The points of transition between Bucky and James.

He thinks perhaps he is falling in love with James as he paints him – how new lines blend with old.

The other paintings he is finishing in the Tower, and they have their own struggles.

Autumn creeps in.

At the youth center Natasha runs a dance class and Steve goes. The kids all laugh at him but he gets better as he relaxes into it. He's actually pretty good on the pole Nat gets installed.

He marches through New York with a million other people.

On TV, he sees James talking about the Stark prosthetic program, the horrors of the medical system, how it kills people quickly, and destroys lives slowly through the burden of debt, the slow grind of poverty. He and Sam have been seeing each other a lot, Steve knows, working on this campaign with Pepper. The paintings will be done by October so there can be a big show before the election.

He allows himself to open the locked drawer where he keeps the letters he wrote, the ring, and the photo of the two of them on their wedding day. That day he was smart enough to appreciate what he had – Bucky looking at him like he was the world.

 _Yes_ , he thinks, _let’s make it better for other people. It’s too late for us, but not for them_.

Some other boys in love.

\-----

_You were there tonight. More beautiful than I remembered. I’ll have to stop writing now._

_Now I know_

\-----

‘James,’ Pepper calls from down the hall as James is leaving the lab. He’s pretty sure at this point Tony just wants to hang out. The arm is in production, and all Tony is adding are ridiculous extras like LED lights ( _you don’t need to carry a torch_ ) and temperature control ( _you can warm lube_ ).

‘Hi Pepper,’ James kisses her on the cheek. She looks a little harried, which means things must be really stressful. She’s kind of running an entire political campaign and a multi-billion-dollar company, so James figures she deserves to look a little stressed.

‘I thought you might want to know that Steve’s in the studio, and he’s been there for about sixteen hours. He said he hadn’t seen much of you recently.’

‘Oh, yeah. We finished the sittings and I’ve been busy with work and the campaign and stuff.’ James shuffles his backpack a little.

‘Well, if you could do me a favor and extract him. I’d prefer him not to have a breakdown just before the show.’

‘Sure, I can take him for one of his relaxing teas or something.’

‘Thank you!’ Pepper kisses him again and turns and walks to the lab. As the door swings open he hears Tony say her name gently and tenderly and Pepper give a little sob. _It’s okay honey, come here_ , Tony says, and James knows he’s spreading his arms towards her.

James smiles sadly and steps into the lift.

‘To the studio thanks JARVIS.’

‘Certainly, James.’

The doors swish open to a light filled room with windows to the south, east and west. There are two huge canvases, and one slightly smaller one, all facing away from James. He steps into the room as JARVIS says, ‘You have a visitor Steven.’

From behind the center canvas Steve emerges. James’ breath stills in his throat.

Steve is scowling, hair sticking up like a straw bale and matted with paint. He’s wearing a loose t-shirt and three-quarter leggings. His eyes glow blue in the afternoon light. And it’s _Steve_. He’s not holding himself in, not hunching and careful of his longer limbs. He’s angry at something – his painting – grumpy and frustrated. He’s wielding a brush like a weapon and baring his teeth as if he’s about to growl at whoever has invaded his territory.

Then he sees James and his face opens like a flower to the sun. Like it would, in the old days, when Bucky came home from dancing and slipped into the studio. And his beautiful, prickly Steve would crack open and all the love would come pouring out of him. And he would open his arms and Bucky would lift him up, pressing him against his sweaty, sore body.

And here, now, Steve is pacing across the floor towards him, face filled with a different, softer light, more like the autumn sunshine as the sun slips lower in the sky. He’s paint-stained and exhausted, but that broad chest is open and he’s beautiful.

‘James, it’s so good to see you.’

‘Hi Steve, Pepper said you were here.’

James looks at the canvases. ‘Am I here?’

Steve blushes and shakes his head.

‘No, you’re in the studio at home.’

James nods.

‘Makes sense.’

Steve looks pleased he said that and looks at him through those devastating lashes.

‘So, I’ve come to pry you out of here so you don’t have a meltdown,’ James looks pointedly at the brush still clutched in Steve’s hand.

‘That sounds really good,’ Steve says. ‘Give me five minutes to clean up and get changed.’

‘I dunno Steve, those leggings look pretty good on you.’ James winks, and Steve blushes again and bites down on his lip.

‘Five minutes, and don’t look at the paintings.’ Steve rushes through a door and James takes a seat, staring out at Manhattan through the windows.

He breaths quietly and lets himself enjoy the warm sensation of affection, of desire, shift and grow in his chest, his stomach. Those eyelashes, those blue eyes.

And then Steve’s there, freshly showered but still marked with paint, in a pair of soft blue jeans and a tight white t-shirt.

‘Shall we?’ James says.

James knows a place nearby that does specialty tea and good espresso coffee.

He finds himself filling with a gentle pleasure at the sight of Steve stretching his arms above his head an opening his chest up. James lets his eyes linger on the curve of Steve’s pectoral muscles and the lines of the muscles in his biceps, his forearms. His big hands are so familiar – worn and rough and stained at the fingertips. They were never delicate.

Steve sips his tea and blinks dazedly at the world. It’s like he’s forgotten to be self-conscious.

‘So, working hard Rogers.’ James sips his coffee and raises an eyebrow.

Steve laughs and buries his face in his hands, resting his elbows on the table.

‘It’s just so _hard_ , trying to tell someone’s story on a canvas. People are so _full_ , so _four-dimensional_. Like – there’s their body but also time – who they were, who they are, who they will be.’

‘At least that’s what’s bothering you.’ James kicks Steve’s foot lightly. ‘I thought it was the political pressure getting to you. You know, the big launch, the big wigs.’

Steve scoffs and kicks James back.

‘Whatever. They’re all just part of the system, James. They make big promises, but I’ll reserve my judgement.’ Steve scowls in the general direction of The Man.

James smiles as Steve sips his weird green tea that kind of smells like roasted rice.

Their feet are still touching under the table.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So only one chapter to go. In theory. I promise if there are additional chapters it will only be because you all (and Steve and James/Bucky) deserve nice things after all the angst.
> 
> I think I promised picnics last time. THERE WILL BE AT LEAST ONE PICNIC. 
> 
> I love all your comments, and I welcome ALL comments/critique/angry rants.
> 
> Come say hi on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/stuckyflangst) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/powerfulowl2)
> 
> Particularly if you are able to explain what's going on with fandom twitter.


	9. Burn your bridges down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all. Apologies for the longer than usual update. Life apparently does happen. It is a longer than usual chapter, slightly. I have also updated the chapter count. I promise 10 is definitely the number.
> 
> One small warning for this chapter. Steve has a little panic attack. And also, there is a reference to a bondage scene Steve witnesses where someone is not given a means to use a safe word and ends up a non-consensual sexual situation.

‘So you’ve been seeing Steve a bit,’ Natasha asks casually, leaning against James’ kitchen bench as the kettle boils.

James is making a coffee using his AeroPress. He and Natasha are in some sort of crazy hipster beverage war where her teas keep getting weirder and his coffee extraction methods get more complex.

‘ _You’ve_ been seeing Steve a bit,’ he replies, depressing the piston with a satisfying hiss.

Natasha rolls her eyes at him.

‘What?’ Bucky shakes the coffee into his benchtop composter. ‘I know you two have tea rituals together and complain about things. And you’ve been spending all that time at the youth centre with him. _I_ just had a coffee or whatever with him once or twice when we ran into each other at the Tower.’

When James had gone up to the studio to find Steve and just have a quick chat, just to see how he was, and suddenly they were sitting opposite one another, feet touching, Steve’s hair a mess and full of paint.

Almost like it used to be.

Natasha is unphased as she pours boiling water over her dried leaves. At least it’s usually pretty standard black tea at this time of the morning.

‘And you posed for him with few or no clothes on a number of times.’

James scowls at her. ‘It was art Natasha, for a good cause.’

She smirks as she gets the milk out of the fridge.

‘Anyway, what’s your investment in this?’ James asks. Aren’t you _my_ friend. Steve is my ex-husband, you’re meant to be on my side. Didn’t you give him a shovel talk or something?’

Natasha throws her head back and laughs, which delights James. Sometimes he feels like they have spent so much of their friendship serious and shut off and quietly hurting side by side – it’s so lovely to have her in his kitchen in sweatpants and a pink Longhorns t-shirt laughing at him.

‘I did give him one, but it was a bit half-hearted to be honest. He’s just so –’ Natasha waves her hand in the air.

James sighs. ‘I know. He’s so _earnest_ and _sorry_ about everything.’

‘Some kid at the centre stabbed him and he’s just like – _oh, you, funny memories_.’ Natasha rolls her eyes and shakes her head a little.

‘I worry.’ Natasha carefully pours her tea over a small splash of milk in the cup, not looking at him. ‘I know you’re doing well, you’re seeing someone now, talking a bit more, but you’re still not _mad_ about anything that happened to you – about that awful man Pierce, or about Steve pushing you away, or whatever it was that happened between you.’ She takes a sip of her tea and stares into the cup.

‘I don’t want you to drift back into something and then lose your sense of yourself again, lose the sense of being worth taking care of.’

Finally she looks up and gives him one of her loving glares, her face bare and beautiful, showing the little line between her eyebrows, a few creases around her eyes.

James smiles at her a little sadly, remembering the days when it was only her fierce belief in him – when they were almost strangers to one another – that kept him tied to the world.

 _I know_ , he tries to tell her with his smile, _I know I can’t just rely on other people to anchor me her, even people as strong as you, as Steve_.

Almost like it was before. But no, because Steve was bigger now, and both of them have a few more lines around their eyes, on their foreheads.

James thinks about how Steve and Natasha both have that same little crease between their eyebrows. Though both of them are less angry than they once were – Steve a little sadder, Natasha a little softer.

She shuffles around the bench towards him and presses against his arm.

‘I don’t know what I’m doing Natasha,’ he sighs and presses back into her, feeling the soft skin of her arm. ‘I promise I’ll bring it up with my therapist.’ He closes his eyes. ‘I know Steve moved on, he really did love Peggy even though it didn’t work. There’s just never been anyone else for me and he still –’

_Draws me like a magnet, like when we were thirteen and I would think about him all the time when he wasn’t with me – think about his hair falling over his face, his blue eyes, how beautiful his hands looked resting on the arm of the chair._

‘Will you be at the opening night?’ she asks.

‘Of course I will,’ James says. ‘Sam messages me once a day to make sure. There’s all these politicians coming. There’ll be speeches and stuff and Sam needs me to work some specific demographic – middle aged white women I think. It will be hideous, but I will be there.’

‘Good,’ Natasha says. ‘I have a really great outfit and you can be my accessory.’

\-----

Sam forces Steve to leave the studio at the tower. Steve’s been sleeping in there some nights, feeling the weight of the commission, the responsibility growing as the guest list gets more important.

Sam and James, and Jettie, and even softly spoken Frank have been doing the TV circuit talking about Stark’s program, what it will do for them. Steve heard Frank’s slow drawl talking about being injured in a coal mining accident years ago, losing both his arms below the elbow, barely surviving and going bankrupt.

Steve had loved painting him. Frank always appeared with several grandchildren in tow, and they would play in the big studio at the Tower while Steve painted, constantly running up with small complaints or injuries or stories of triumph, being gathered up in Franks big arms.

‘It’s the best thing,’ he said to Steve, and then again and again to the USA, ‘to be able to hold my children, my grandchildren.’

The kids all loved the arm obviously. Called Frank Grandpa Robot.

Those were in the long summer days when the studio was full of life and people.

Not just Steve and the smell of paint and a sense he wasn’t enough to do justice to these people’s stories.

But even with the campaign running 24/7 Sam remembers to come for Steve and make him stop. He forces Steve to confess that he hadn’t actually made a change to anything for the past two days.

Steve lets Sam look at the paintings, goes out of the room to have a shower so he doesn’t have to watch. He tries to focus on the hot water falling across his face and calm the breath hitching in his chest.

When he comes out, damp and brittle, Sam turns to him and pulls him into a warm, tight embrace. Steve trembles in Sam’s arms and they are both crying.

‘Are they okay?’ Steve croaks.

‘They’re beautiful Steve,’ Sam hugs him even tighter.

‘But where’s the one of James?’ Sam pulls away, still holding Steve’s arms, steadying him.

Steve blushes a little and ducks his head.

‘Um, in the studio at my apartment.’ Steve rubs the back of his neck as Sam drops his hands and starts giving Steve a _look_.

‘I just – he was already in New York – I hadn’t sorted out the studio when I started – then it was –’ Steve trails of and sighs a little.

He knows Sam and James have been getting kind of tight working on all of this campaign stuff.

That thought makes him sag a little. Why has he been here in this studio when the world is shaking apart outside? He’d been to lots of protests earlier in the year – in the spring, through the summer – he’d gone with the kids from the youth centre when they wanted to go. He’d stopped some of them getting thrown into a cop van when they were all walking back from a march.

And now suddenly it’s the end of September and he doesn’t even know what day it was, or what is happening in the world. There’s an election on which could change the country (at least a little, if not as much as it should). What’s Steve doing about it?

‘There’s a lot going on in there Steve,’ Sam waves a hand in front of Steve’s face and he blinks.

‘Sorry,’ Steve gives his head a shake. ‘Just thinking about –’

 _The times James came and took him out for smoothies, for coffees, for food_ –

‘Okay,’ says Sam starting to steer Steve towards the door. ‘We’re not going to talk about the many, many things that seem to be happening inside Steve Rogers right now, including potentially terrible decisions being made with regards to attractive ex-husbands. We’re leaving, shutting the door, and telling Pepper their ready to be installed. You can look at them again when you’re fussing about how they’re being hung. You are also going to have to let the painting of James out of your house, but let’s deal with that tomorrow.’

‘Do you know if James will be there, at the opening?’ Steve asks.

‘He better be,’ says Sam. ‘Aren’t you guys in touch anyway?’

Steve blushes again and shakes his head.

‘Not really. It’s um – just casual, you know? We run into each other sometimes. He finished sitting for me a while back. The painting of him is done.’

The great thing about painting James is that Steve knows already he will never entirely do him justice – has known for years he can only ever capture a moment, a shadow.

He looks back over his shoulder as he leaves. It’s all you can ever do for anyone. You just have to hope you get that one moment, one aspect, one angle right.

He shuts the door and knows he’s done.

That’s why he feels so empty.

\-----

James decides not to get there early. Pepper said the five of them could. But James arrives five minutes after the official start time with Natasha on his arm.

She looks stunning on a close fitting, ankle-length, strapless black evening gown with delicate silver embroidery across the bodice and strappy silver heels.

‘Got you armor on?’ he asked her with a smile when she stepped out of her room, hair twisted up in simple knot, a few artful curls falling against the nape of her neck.

‘It is a little like chain mail isn’t it?’ she smiled, running red nails across the embroidery.

She’d instructed him to wear a silver-grey suit with a black shirt and a silvery tie. Eyes turned to them when they entered the room, and James was suddenly aware how the silver of his hand matched the suit.

Sam was already there, looking sharp in a black suit with a waistcoat and a charcoal shirt and tie. He’s talking intensely to Maria, who appeared out of nowhere at one of their meetings and volunteered to organize the Healthcare for All campaign.

She’d cut her teeth as a staffer in DC, but said her heart had been broken a few too many times. In a while she’d come over and tell James who he needed to talk to, but they’d all agreed to allow an hour to spend with the paintings.

‘You ready?’ Natasha asked, handing him a mocktail and sipping a champagne.

James held his breath and nodded.

He couldn’t see Steve anywhere. Maybe he was in the main room with the art.

They stepped through the doors and there on a canvas, twice as big as in life, was Frank, standing with his knees a little bent and his arms wide, welcoming, as if you were running towards him for a hug.

He was wearing jeans and a white singlet, the muscles of his burly shoulders and upper arms almost hyper-realistic. Then, from below the elbows, the details of the grooves and patterns of his two transradial prostheses precisely and delicately rendered, palms opened, the delicate interlocking plates and joints at the foreground of the picture.

But the centre of the painting, the heart, was Frank’s warm, bearded face, the loving smile and warm brown eyes.

In front of the painting was the man himself, looking a bit more awkward in a formal black suit, white shirt and black tie, which he kept tugging with a finger. He was surrounded by what must be close to the whole contingent of his children, partners and grandchildren, all laughing and commenting.

‘Grandpa Robot, Grandpa Robot!’ one of the boys cried out, barrelling through the crowd. Frank crouched a little and opened his arms and James could see where Steve had found the pose.

Now, on the canvas, Frank was reaching out to give the whole world one of those hugs.

‘If we don’t move on soon I might tear up a little, James,’ Natasha murmurs in his ear.

Other people are drifting into the room as well, gathering around the canvas and Frank and his brood.

The hall is massive, set out so each canvas has it’s own wall, each in front of the other with a gap on either side. The angles are such you only see the next painting come into view as you walk past the previous one.

James and Natasha move away from Grandpa Robot – that is literally what the painting is called, Natasha points out to him – and into the next space.

It’s incredible. A triptych of Jettie in tight shorts and a crop top. In the first painting she is suspended in the air, her hair a curling black halo around her head, her chest up and chin raised, arms relaxed by her sides and legs – both silver transfemoral prostheses joined mid thigh – stretched out with toes pointed. The scarring on her thighs creates delicate patterns across her dark skin – belying the violence and the agony of her injury. Behind her the sky is blue and clear, an ocean of rich green grass below her looking soft and damp to the touch.

In the second she is dropping down, hair fanning out above her head and body coiling as she prepares to land. Her body is soft and strong – belly marked by stretch marks but the line of her upper abdominal muscles still clear.

Then in the third painting she is landing, knees flexed, feet in the grass, the painting capturing the send of the weight, the gravity bearing down on the prostheses, perfectly cushioned and controlled by her body, the legs now part of that body.

And through all of the paintings her mouth curving in a joyous smile, teeth showing, eyes closed and body humming with life.

James can see her in a corner of the space in a white, mid length lace dress, showing off her legs. She has a glass of champagne in one hand and her daughter is holding the other hand, also wearing a white lace dress. Jettie is talking seriously to a man in a black suit. Already on the hustings. She’s a veteran, a mother. A mother who’s been bringing up her daughter from a wheelchair for the past nine years.

James gives her a salute and a thumbs up and she breaks her serious face for a moment to raise her glass at him and smile.

‘Can you see Steve?’ James asks.

Natasha shakes her head.

James thinks back to last time, when Steve was suddenly there, in front of him, warm and real and built from flesh. He feels his skin tingle a little, the old tug in his belly and his chest, like a cord buried in him is stretched too far.

 _What if I never stopped wanting him?_ he’d asked his therapist the other day.

 _What if you just never let yourself want anyone else?_ she had replied.

The next room is Alishah. James had wondered how you would paint the little fluttering butterfly of a girl. The first two paintings were so detailed, so heavy, even though they were in motion.

But this is totally different. Nine smaller paintings fill a three by three square. Instead of oils they use watercolours, instead of realistic detail the lines are quick, fluid, in motion. Alishah is wearing a green dress and it flutters around her as she runs, the scarf on her head catching in the breeze. She trips. She is lying on the ground laughing, scarf around her neck. Alishah is kneeling in shorts and a t-shirt, sniffing at a flower, picking it, leaping to her feet. Alisha is sitting reading, legs swinging, on the floor with the cat, crawling under the table. Colours swirl around her like the stories she is always telling, the dreams she conjures from a childhood lonelier than most.

And all her limbs are prostheses. Born with no arms or legs, parents struggling to find prostheses that worked for children. Tony had worked hardest on hers’. Using different materials – not metal – they were lighter, more malleable, easier to adjust. James had seen Tony working with her – the two of them jumping on the spot, laughing when Alishah stumbled and Tony caught her, playing catch with DUM-E.

Tonight she is very formal and respectable in her green salwar kameez standing between her parents. But she grins when James winked at her.

‘Am I going to be last?’ James groaned.

‘Almost certainly,’ Natasha said.

James feels nervous all of a sudden. Those things Steve saw in the others. Those things he saw in James, in _Bucky_ , all those years ago. What will he see now after the desert, the divorce, all these year?

James sees himself as he is now, closed off from the world. Remembers the man who would cry in movies, dance all night with strangers, kneel naked an unafraid in front of Steve Rogers and love him with every particle of his being. That man was rubbed raw by the world when he went out into it alone. Now he is so careful, so quiet. What will he look like, looking out of the canvas now?

But the fourth room still isn’t him. Lee hadn’t even wanted to be in the program initially. They worked for Stark Industries in IT, and when Tony was looking for people they had refused at first.

Tony, of course, had hunted them down, insisted he needed to work on a transtibial prosthesis and Lee was a veteran, was missing their lower right leg.

But Lee had said they didn’t lose it in the war, but after. _I’m just fat. I have diabetes. This isn’t for people like me_.

But they were here now, hiding in a corner with a sparkling water staring at the painting. Mostly people hadn’t made it this far yet.

Steve had really struggled with this one – struggled to get Lee to sit, struggled to get them comfortable.

But here they were. A smaller canvas – life-sized. Lee is standing, leaning against a stone wall sketched in almost photographic detail in ink. But the figure is less distinct and as they move closer it becomes clear they are textured, clothed in a patchwork of fabric, the skin of their face and hands leaves and dried flowers. In the side profile, only the eyes are painted sharply in oils – hazel flecked with gold – and the prosthesis painted in silver.

Lee suddenly appears beside them.

‘I told him I felt like I was already built from pieces of scrap, so the leg didn’t feel too different.’

James smiles and puts a hand on Lee’s arm.

‘There’s feather over my heart,’ Lee points, ‘and that’s from my army uniform.’ They let out a sigh.

‘You gonna talk to any of the politicians tonight?’ James asks. Lee has been reluctant to do interviews, only prepared to sit in the background on stage at rallies, scowling at the ground when they are referred to as a decorated veteran.

‘Maybe,’ Lee says thoughtfully. ‘Is that a butterfly wing?’

James notices that the description of the painting states that all materials were collected from the ground, and no insects or birds were harmed in the making of this painting. Steve once got into a fight with a boy who pulled the wings of flies, James remembers fondly. _How would you like it if I pulled your arms off?!_ Bucky had held Steve afterwards, tiny and bony and in tears. His hair was like a fluffy duckling back then, and he smelled like the beach.

Natasha guides him gently into the last space, which is smaller. Steve isn’t here either, and James wonders where he is.

James’ canvas is a rectangle, about 8 by 6. James sits on the chair, the one in the studio, naked. His thighs are parted and his cock nestles in a thatch of brown hair. He remembers how Steve put the quilt over the chair for him, and there it is in the painting – faded tobacco leaf pattern. His right arm is along the arm of the chair, and his head rests on the metal prosthesis, hand in a loose fist.

The painting doesn’t have the detail of Frank’s or Jettie’s. The brushstrokes are visible, mapping shadows across James’ body – the spread of his thigh muscles, the ridges of his abdominals and the soft curve of his belly. The scars are there, but as an impression, like a shadow, not in fine detail. His lips are full and pinkish, his cheekbones and his jaw sharp and soft. His eyes stare out of the canvas shimmering between grey and blue.

Behind his right shoulder the choppy ocean grey beneath a wild sky. a Behind his left the blue sky above the scrubby, rocky desert. Above his head, at the limit of the painting, as if through a skylight, bright stars in a thick midnight blue sky.

In every line of the painting is longing. But the eyes, like the windows, won’t let you through.

James exhales shakily, feeling the tugging in his chest.

‘Come on,’ Natasha takes his hand. ‘Time to circulate.’

\-----

Steve is in the reception area talking to an incredibly boring but incredibly rich woman who owns a hotel chain and is suggesting Steve could come and paint the views out of the windows in her hotels to put on the walls of other hotels.

Steve can see Sam talking to important politicians – Senate candidates, members of Congress. Steve’s not allowed to talk to them because Maria says he will get into fights, which is true. Why she thinks he won’t get into a fight with this awful woman is beyond him.

He sips his champagne and grimaces as she talks about making sure that the views are better than the actual views.

Then suddenly there’s an arm on his shoulder and the woman is staring at the hand because it’s metal and she’s saying – ‘Are you one of the cripples then?’

And James is saying, ‘Yes ma’am, and I’m afraid I need to borrow the artist.’

Steve’s shaking the woman’s hand and being given a card and James is dragging him away.

‘You looked like something was about to burst, Stevie.’

And it wasn’t, but now his heart probably will because James called him Stevie.

Steve knows he’s on the edge tonight. Everything’s perfect. The paintings are fine, the hanging is great, everyone seems really happy, even Lee in a weird way – at least they seem to be talking to people. Apparently Lee is allowed to get mad at Republican Senators because they’re a veteran.

But Steve is definitely not fine.

And James seems to know it, and is pulling him out of the main hall through a side door and into the cool October air.

‘Just breath for me, Steve.’ James is holding his shoulders and breathing in slowly and loudly, breathing out. And Steve’s body remembers to follow his lead, match his breaths, and as he comes back into himself he realises his heart is beating loudly in his ears and he feels cold.

He shivers a little, and James puts an arm around him.

‘You okay Steve?’ he asks softly. He’s so warm. Steve lets himself enjoy it just for a moment or two. It’s okay. He knows James isn’t coming back to him, but here, in this moment, he can lean into him a little.

‘Yeah, sorry, it happens sometimes.’ Steve shakes his head a little. ‘I just got a little overwhelmed in there.’

James hums and rubs his back, as if Steve had an asthma attack, not a panic attack.

‘You know, I always though you’d be the politician, all those arguments you got into at school. When you got the treatment I thought after, when you were better, that might be something you’d want to do.’

Steve looked back at the door they’d come through, thinking of the busy room, the clinking glasses, the shiny people.

‘Yeah, I thought I might. But,’ Steve shrugs, ‘I’m actually very badly suited for politicking. Even with Peggy, in London, there was all this hospital fundraising stuff. We’d go along, wear nice clothes, talk to rich donors. I’d always start an argument about something. Peggy thought I did it intentionally, but it’s just –’ Steve breaks off. ‘It would be the same in there.’

‘Sam’ll probably run for something next election, I reckon,’ James says.

‘He’s good at it, good at people, good at fighting without losing his shit.’

Steve screws his eyes shut, fighting back all the words crowding against his lips. _I’m just useless. What have I done? Still in the same apartment, still with paint in my hair._

‘The paintings are beautiful, Steve,’ James says softly. ‘You did real well by everyone. You know there’s going to be copies of them on billboards all over the country?’

‘Art for the masses,’ Steve laughs.

James pulls him into a brief, glorious hug and Steve can smell his shampoo, his fancy aftershave, feel the cool of his neck against Steve’s cheek.

‘Come on, you have to meet your adoring public,’ James says, guiding him back inside. ‘And I have to try to talk to a Congressman in front of a painting of my dick.’

Steve elbows him and they go back inside, James’ hand lingering for a few moments on the curve of Steve’s spine.

\-----

Late November is strange. The city is in celebration, in tension. The outgoing President is making speeches complaining about rigged votes. People assume he will leave. Surely he’ll leave.

James gets a message from Steve, asking if he wants to meet in the park for a picnic.

Natasha is down in Texas, so she’s not here to tell James that it sounds a bit like a date.

 _Sorry if that’s weird_ , Steve messages

_I know it sounds like a date_

_It’s not meant to be a date_

_I’d just like to see you_

_And it’s a nice day_

James smiles. It is a nice day. Unseasonably warm

_Should I bring anything?_

_I’ve got it all under control_ 😊

They meet in Prospect Park, Steve sitting on a bench in a knitted charcoal sweater and a scarf with a navy jacket over the top. Beside him is an old-fashioned picnic basket that James recognises from summers past. It was Sarah Rogers’ and James knows it contains a cutlery set, metal cups, metal crockery and a thermos.

James smiles as he walks over.

‘We’re a bit matchy,’ James gestures to his own navy peacoat.

Steve gives him a blinding grin. ‘It’s probably a bit warm for jackets anyway.’

Steve leads them to a position in the sun and spreads out a blanket.

They shed their jackets. James is in a red cable knit sweater.

He narrows his eyes at Steve.

‘Did Natasha give you that?’ he asks.

Steve nods. ‘She’s weirdly obsessed with knitwear for someone from Texas, isn’t she?’

James nods.

Steve lays out sandwiches and pickles and cookies, and they start to eat, commenting on the joggers, the tourists, the miscreant youths.

‘So what have you been up to since the exhibition?’ James asks.

Steve swallows a mouthful of sandwich.

‘Umm, well it all got pretty tense for a while yeah? I was arrested a few times at protests, got pepper sprayed, tear gassed.’ He sounds pretty cheerful about it. James thinks of how panicked he was that night of the exhibition, curled in on himself, eyes glassy and unfocused.

‘It was good to have a break from painting,’ Steve says, playing with the grass with his fingers. ‘I got into my head a bit too much that last month or so.’

He smiles shyly at James. ‘Thank you for taking me out those times – I didn’t realise how much I needed it. This,’ he gestures around at the picnic, ‘is my way of saying thanks.’

James smiles back. ‘You don’t have to thank me, Steve.’

‘But you can’t stop me from doing it,’ Steve laughs, then his face falls into a more serious expression, that little crease between his eyebrows.

‘I feel like I took you for granted, you know, before.’ He looks away and pulls out the thermos. ‘I brought coffee to have with the cookies.’

James accepts the warm cup of coffee and takes a cookie. They’re homemade, oatmeal choc-chip, and he knows from days past the choc chips will melt if he dips the cookie in his coffee, rich and sweet and gooey.

‘I’ve decided to go back to school,’ James says, skirting safely around thanks and regrets and apologies.

‘Really?’ Steve beams at him. ‘That’s great James.’

‘Yeah, Natasha’s bored with the firm, and so am I. We made way more money than we thought, and Tony appears just to be paying all of us for answering random questions when he calls, so we both thought we’d go to college.’

James shrugs a little. He’s a bit worried about the whole thing. He’s kind of old for college, and he’s not sure there’s much point, but he’s trying to find out what he likes, what he wants to do. _Choose_ something.

‘What are you going to study?’ Steve takes another cookie.

‘Well, at first I was thinking engineering or something, but that seems too applied when the point is to work out what I want to be when I grow up.’ James digs with a stick in the dirt, knowing Steve will be thinking of why he didn’t study in the first place, the fact that James paid for Steve to go through school.

‘Um, so I’m just doing science. I thought maybe astronomy or astrophysics would be cool, but I’m not locking anything in at the moment.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘SUNY,’ James says.

‘So still in New York,’ Steve breathes.

‘Yeah.’

It’s so strange, how they switch from talking like nothing ever changed, to being awkward acquaintances. James focuses on his breathing, trying to supress the fluttering in his chest.

A breeze springs up and ruffles Steve’s hair. It’s darkened over the years, but in the sunshine still glints with honey-gold.

‘I should have done more nice things for you James. I should have been a better husband,’ Steve says in a low voice, watching James’ hands.

‘You did nice things, Steve,’ James licks his lips. ‘Remember the time you filled the apartment with stars for my birthday – you made like two hundred stars and every one was a little different.’

Steve snorts. ‘But then I got into a fight while I was waiting to meet you at the station and you had to take my to hospital. We didn’t get home until really late and I couldn’t kiss you properly because my lip was split.’

‘But the apartment was full of stars.’

They sit in silence for a while, the chatter of the park around them, the breeze rising and falling like an uneven breath.

‘Steve,’ James takes a deep breath, sitting up straight, legs crossed hands on his thighs. ‘Steve, I think we should talk properly about what happened between us. I think this – in-between place we’re in at the moment isn’t – sustainable.’

James chest is tight, but he has to get this out. Steve is staring at him, blue eyes matching the autumn sky.

‘Why don’t you come over to my place one afternoon and we can – talk.’

Steve leans forward a little, rocking from his hips.

‘I’d like that James, I’d really like that.’

They pack up the picnic basket together, each treasured piece still there just as James remembered.

\-----

Steve stands outside James’ building. The weather has turned towards winter and Steve is wrapped up tight against the cold air.

At the club the other night he’d had to intervene in a scene. There was an older man who had a younger man over a trestle, handcuffed, feet in a spreader and gagged. The older man had a whip and was wielding it hard and vicious and the younger man was squirming and crying and making guttural cries.

Steve watched for a minute or two. It wasn’t really his thing but he as trying to work out what the signal system was – how the young man would call a halt.

‘Excuse me,’ he asked, ‘excuse me.’ The older guy turned towards him, angry and snarling.

‘What?’ he’d snapped. ‘You’re interrupting my scene.’

‘I’m sorry, what’s the signal here?’

‘Signal?’ the guy looked three seconds away from laying into Steve with the whip.

‘How do you know if he needs you to stop?’

‘It’s not up to him,’ the guy scoffed.

In one motion Steve stepped towards the younger man, out of the reach of the whip and pulled of the gag.

‘No more, no more,’ the young man croaked, sobbing.

Then others had moved in, and the older man was removed. Steve gathered up the younger man and checked on him, cleaning him down, icing his bruises, putting antiseptic on the open cuts.

There was a doctor there who had checked him over but Raul refused to let go of Steve’s hand. Steve fed him chocolate and water and kept murmuring how good he was, how good he was to have ask for it to stop.

And now he was here, on James’ doorstep, in the cold. Part of him wishes that the man had been Alexander Pierce and Steve had beaten him and said _this is for James_ and thrown him out onto the street to be shamed by the world.

But that wasn’t how this worked. How anything worked.

Even at the club the guy had just been sent on his way.

Steve felt tired.

He pressed the buzzer and James buzzed him in.

It was a nice building, early twentieth century maybe but in good repair. Steve knocked softly on James’ door, and there he was, in sweatpants and a hoody, hair falling soft around his face, a smile on his lips and crinkling his eyes.

‘Hey Steve.’

‘Hey James.’

That was something he had got used to. _James_. Because this James wasn’t his Bucky. James was more wary, eyes sharper and more wary.

Part of Steve wanted to say _because of me_ , but he tried to let that go. He was trying not to think of this as all about him. It should be about James.

James ushered him in and offered him his heart’s desire from Natasha’s range of teas.

Steve asked if he could have a hot chocolate and James brightened and started to hustle about, heating milk and melting chocolate, pulling marshmallows out of a cupboard.

They settled opposite one another in armchairs, James with a soft blanket over his knees.

‘This is all I could have every wanted for you,’ Steve blurted out.

‘What?’ James asked, confused.

‘This,’ Steve gestured at James, ‘you soft and warm and safe.’

James gazed down into the hot chocolate and the silence stretched.

‘What do you think happened with us Steve?’ he asked finally.

Steve took a shaky breath.

‘I said some of it before,’ he said, ‘about resenting your sacrifices. I knew how much you gave up for me, and some days I would love you so much for it my heart hurt, and other days I felt sure one day you would wake up and see I wasn’t worth it.’ Steve pokes at a melting marshmallow

‘But that year I just – I felt disconnected from you. That last time we had sex I was terrified of myself afterwards. I thought I’d broken us, even though you said it was okay. And then every time I talked to you, you were further and further in the distance.

‘Sam and Peggy – I guess they were trying to help, but I couldn’t tell them everything. Dr Banner kept saying I should just talk to you, but you weren’t there. Then I was just nasty and angry and then you were gone.’

They are quiet again for a moment, and Steve knows there is one more thing to say.

‘I didn’t understand why you wouldn’t even talk to me. I was so sorry, so sorry.’

Steve breathes and takes a sip of his drink, rich and sweet and warm.

James puts his own mug down and strokes the blanket on his knees.

‘You were always it for me, Steve. Always so beautiful, so righteous, so loving. And that year you – everyone else could see it too. Once, for a while, it was like you were all for me.’

He closes his eyes, and Steve can mark his eyelashes against his cheeks.

‘Then it wasn’t just me. And it’s not that I was jealous exactly, or not just that. You always had your crushes and I never minded.’ James’ voice is filling with tears drawn from old wells.

‘But when I spoke to you on the phone I knew you weren’t telling me things, but I wasn’t telling you things so I felt like –’ James’ hands are trembling on the blanket, even the plates of the prosthesis whir in nervous sympathy.

‘I wasn’t worth anything.’

Steve makes a pained noise in his throat and clenches his fists, squeezing them between his thighs.

‘I was dirty and sweaty and nothing, I was nothing –’ James’ voice cracks and breaks into a heaving sob.

Steve leans towards him – not sure, not sure yet.

‘Then after I left, it was still bad. I told Pierce to fuck off but then I was just – I was drunk all the time and fighting. Not good fights, but stupid fights in bars. Fucking people. Not caring. I was –’ he takes a shuddering breath ‘– I was _flayed open_ Steve, flayed open to the world and I was _not good enough for you anymore_.’

He breaks and buries his head in his hands, weeping.

Steve breaks and stumbles towards him, dropping to his knees in front of him, putting his hands on James’ thighs.

‘You are the best person, James, the best person,’ Steve is crying too. ‘You were my everything as well, and I let you go.’

James lowers his hands, still sobbing, face pink and screwed up with agony.

‘Can I hold you James, can I hold you?’ Steve croaks.

James nods and opens his arms and Steve crawls up onto the couch and wraps him up, wraps them together, legs and arms entangled, James’ wet face pressed into Steve’s chest.

Steve strokes his hair and whispers _so good, so good for me, took such good care of me_ for what might be minutes, might be hours, until James falls into a desperate sleep, breath quick and damp against Steve’s chest.

Steve knows, lying back against the couch arm, James’ hair beneath his fingers, that he is done loving anyone except James Barnes.

\-----

When James wakes it is dark and under his head Steve’s chest moves slowly, the steady beat of his heart so different from the erratic, quick pace it used to set.

James hasn’t cried like that in years. He didn’t know he had it in him.

But the tightness in his chest isn’t there, for the moment. The cord doesn’t tug when he’s pressed against Steve like this.

Could they do it? he wonders. Could they love one another again?

 _I was flayed open to the world_ he’d said. That used to only be for Steve. Then it was the world, then no one.

He digs his fingers into Steve’s soft muscles and he shifts under James.

‘You awake?’ Steve whispers, stroking his hair.

‘Mmhmm,’ James mumbles, then braces himself and sits up. Steve follows, fumbling for a lamp beside the couch.

In the sudden bright light they blink at one another. Steve’s face is puffy and squished – eyes bright and cheeks flushed. He doesn’t look sleepy. He must have lain there, awake, as James slept.

James touches his own face, feeling the sticky tracks of tears.

‘I’ll get some water,’ Steve says, standing and untangling himself from the blanket.

He is gone for a few minutes and comes back with a cool face cloth and two glasses of water.

James drinks the water thirstily, and Steve holds out the face cloth for him.

James looks at it, feeling a warmth spreading from his stomach. He decides that if he thinks of Steve as an acquaintance, he’ll be forced to be embarrassed by his break down, by soaking Steve’s sweater with tears, by falling asleep for hours on his chest.

Instead he’ll accept that this is Steve Rogers, who he loved before he knew him, and will keep loving when they both return to the earth.

‘Could you please do it?’ he asks.

And Steve looks at him with wonder and holds his head gently as he wipes the tears of his face, runs the cool cloth down his throat, over the back of his neck. Then he picks up his right hand and runs the cloth across James’ palm.

James recalls Steve whispering to him, telling him how good he was.

‘Did I really look after you well, Stevie?’ James asks, looking at his hands.

‘So well, James, so well. Look at how well I’m doing now,’ Steve replies softly.

‘I don’t know, Steve, you seem a bit sad,’ James looks up and meets those blue eyes – like autumn, or spring.

‘Yeah, maybe a little, but I brought that on myself,’ Steve smiles and strokes a finger across James’ metal hand, which whispers in reply.

‘Because you left Peggy?’ James asks.

‘No James,’ Steve shakes his head. ‘Because I was married to my best guy, Bucky Barnes, and I was a real jerk to him.’

‘Maybe you’re both older and wiser now,’ James places his right hand over Steve’s.

‘You know I’d be happy, just being friends with you again, James? You don’t have to do this for me.’ And Steve does look older and wiser, those sad lines around his eyes, his mouth.

‘I know Steve. I think we both might be happier if we try for more.’

James leans forward slowly and Steve leans to meet him, eyes wide. Their lips meet, and Steve still tastes a little of tears, his mouth warm against Bucky’s cloth-cooled skin.

Steve makes a little sound in his throat and James moans softly in reply.

And from the same old well where the tears lay sleeping rushes warm joy, rushing up and filling him as their mouths move in old patterns, arms moving to wrap them together. James feels their hearts beating together, the frisson of another body out of time with his own, _Steve’s_ body.

James’ lips part and Steve’s tongue flickers along his teeth, pushes into his mouth. Steve’s hands are cupping his face and he feels his body going warm and loose.

Steve gently pulls back, still holding James’ face and James lets out a little whine.

‘I love you James Barnes, you have to know that,’ Steve says, soft and husky.

‘I love you too Steve Rogers,’ James says.

‘We’ll be more careful this time,’ Steve whispers, ‘I’ll be more careful with you.’

Steve kisses each of James’ fingers one by one. And James trusts that he will.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really appreciate everyone's lovely comments. Writing the making up has been harder than writing the breaking up. But we did get to the picnic eventually.
> 
> Let me know what you thought, or just keep hanging on for the final installment.
> 
> I love you all.


	10. Let your hair hang down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Desire and sadness and blood taste so similar, so like the ocean.
> 
> \-----
> 
> Steve and James find their way back to one another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter! Chapter 9 was a real struggle for me, but this came easier. Warning that I am constitutionally incapable of writing an angst-free chapter, but it all comes good.

Loving Steve Rogers a second time is different from the first, James thinks. Steve is different.

He notices it in the way Steve’s head is lowered more now. He could never stand as straight as he’d like because of his spine, but his sharp chine was always jutting up, eyes alert to the world around him.

Steve now is almost bashful a lot of the time. Except in rare moments, he folds in, moves carefully and deliberately rather than crashing through, like he did before.

James mentions it to Nat, who nods and says James should come down to the Center and watch Steve in the dance classes with the kids.

_He forgets himself then_ , she says.

James and Steve are in the line at a sandwich place in Brooklyn. They make great sandwiches, but the place has been listed on some internet list and suddenly its packed with people. The staff are looking harried. James is leaning into the bulk of Steve’s side a little, practicing enjoying nice things.

The woman in front of them turns and rolls her eyes at Steve. She’s in her 40s, well dressed and made up.

‘They could move a bit faster,’ she complains, gesturing to where the servers are still carefully fresh slicing the loaves and arranging the ingredients just so. It’s cold outside but the shop is hot and the servers’ faces are flushed, but they take time to occasionally joke with one another, flashing smiles and laughing.

‘Good to know they’re having fun with their friends, but they have a job to do,’ the woman continues, ignoring James and tossing her hair a little for Steve. ‘I need to be back for a meeting at 1.30.’

James feels rather than sees Steve draw up, straightening his shoulders. James turns and sees that determined chin jutting out, Steve’s eyebrows furrowing into a disappointed frown.

‘They’re doing their job, _ma’am_. And it’s probably a much harder job than yours, for which they are paid much less.’ Steve’s voice is dripping with disdain.

The woman blinks at him and scowls, then sighs theatrically and looks at her phone and pushes out through the crowd.

‘This place certainly won’t be getting any return business from me,’ she says loudly as she leaves.

Steve growls a little in his throat and leaves a fifty dollar tip in the jar when they pay for their sandwiches.

‘Still fighting the good fight hey Stevie?’ James elbows him gently as they walk back to Steve’s place.

Steve turns, face still pulled into a frown, then gives a slightly embarrassed laugh when he catches James’ eye. Steve’s head drops again and his shoulders fold in.

‘It was the right thing to do, standing up to her,’ James says.

Steve smiles a little uncertainly, and James thinks that Steve never needed reassurance before, that what he’d done was right.

Later, on the couch, bellies full, James leans into Steve and tentatively kisses his full, pink lips. Steve makes a tiny moan in his throat, reaching a hand out to cup James’ cheek. Their lips part and tongues slide together. James feels Steve’s hair under his hands, where it curls a little on the nape of his neck. Steve’s body is so warm and big and solid. James’ skin itches with wanting. He feels the tremors in Steve’s arms as they wrap around him.

James pulls back slowly and Steve immediately releases him. James looks into those blue eyes, darkened now – pupils blown. Their unsteady breath is loud in the quiet apartment. James can feel himself half hard in his pants, mind flickering through the bank of memories he has for so many years tried to keep locked away.

His skin itches and burns for a sharper touch.

‘I better head off,’ James says instead. Steve smiles at him – a new smile James doesn’t know how to read – gentle and sad and full of love – but something else there too.

They haven’t talked about everything. Whether Steve still goes to those clubs. What James wants now.

Just making out like Christian teenagers – kisses full of longing and inchoate desire.

‘Okay – I’ll see you at Sam’s thing tomorrow night?’

Steve walks him to the door. On his way down the stairs – familiar and unfamiliar like a dream – James stops and rests against the wall, remembering walking down here with a bag of his possessions and a broken heart.

When Nat is in town she still looks at him sometimes with a worried look.

On the phone he tells Becca that he and Steve have been seeing each other a bit. On the screen he watches her eyes widen and her hand come up to her mouth.

‘Oh James,’ she says.

‘Is that a happy or a worried _oh James_?’ he asks.

‘I don’t know,’ she says, laughing. ‘Both.’

\-----

James is grinding beans in Steve’s kitchen and doesn’t hear what Steve says.

‘What was that sorry?’ James turns and Steve is standing in the doorway clutching his phone, a distressed look on his face.

‘Bucky, I think you’re going to want to see this.’

James starts a little at the use of _Bucky_ – Steve almost never slips on that. He runs his hands down the side of his thighs, trying to work out what could make Steve look that way.

Steve hands him the phone.

_Oil baron Alexander Pierce accused of sexual harassment and assault._

James’ heart fills his chest completely, his throat. His eyes flick over the screen

_Owner of US oil and gas giant Hydroil, Alexander Pierce is a significant donor to both Democrat and Republican candidates … Young intern has accused Pierce … starting with inappropriate remarks … forcing him to … When asked why he had not come forward earlier … ‘I know nothing will happen to him, but maybe if I say something he’ll think twice before doing it again’ … Parker is from Queens and lives with his aunt … Pierce’s spokesperson has noted Parker’s financially distressed position and suggested …._

‘Breathe James, breathe,’ Steve reaches out and puts a hand on his shoulder and James jerks away.

Bucky, Steve had called him Bucky before because that’s who he was when all this happened, when he went into the desert.

On his knees in that awful cabin, sweat dripping in a line down his spine, chilled by the air conditioning. The pad of expensive loafers. The touch of those cold fingers.

Steve stands hunched and pained, hands clenched in fists by his sides.

_I known nothing will happen to him_.

James is trembling, tears sting in his eyes. He is. He is. He is.

He is _fucking furious_.

‘That _motherfucker_ ,’ he spits. ‘That _motherfucker_.’ Bile rises in his throat.

‘He must have been doing this for _years_. On the sites, in his office to his fucking _interns_. _Financially distressed_ – he can probably smell the desperation for money – knows who he can frighten onto their knees.’

Tears are standing out in Steve’s eyes and James is _fucking furious_.

‘And you Steve with your righteous fucking anger about _me lying to you_ while some rich guy with all the power is _forcing me to submit_ to him in a shithole in the desert.’ James is shouting now, the feeling rushing back of how _alone_ he’d been that year. How even Brock fucking Rumlow had seemed like a decent companion. Brock knew, after all, what was happening.

‘I was _alone_ Steve,’ he can hear his voice, almost a wail now, ‘I _needed_ you and you _weren’t there_. You were _mad at me_ but I only did it because I loved you. I only did it because I loved you.’

James can see Steve’s fists clenching, knows Steve wants to hold him.

‘I have to go,’ James says. ‘I have to do something. I’m going to talk to Sam.’

James pushes past Steve, who stands aside, just like that.

\-----

Maria helps James with a statement. He’s got some profile through the election, through the Stark Prosthetics campaign.

In the articles sometimes they use the painting Steve did of him, cropped above the waist, or not.

_I didn’t say anything for years because I thought, like Peter Parker, there could never be justice. And I still think that might be true. But I need him to know, anyone in this position to know, that you are not alone. I believe you. It’s not your fault._

Natasha calls him from Texas and complains that he didn’t tell her first.

‘I just had to do this one myself Tasha,’ he tells her softly.

‘You did well, James,’ she says, voice warm.

Peter is a good kid. Early twenties, trying to scrape his way through the world. James sees him staring at his arm and James opens up the panel for him.

‘Would you like to meet Tony Stark?’ James asks. And Peter’s eyes light up.

This is how rich people do it, right? James thinks. Not what you know but who.

Steve sends him a message.

_You’re very brave James._

James doesn’t reply – isn’t ready to yet.

He talks to his therapist about anger.

At Christmas he goes home to his family. His mother and father have been trying to build bridges via Becca. James knows or feels that it’s just because he’s suddenly rich and successful and all the things they never thought he could be. This Christmas they avoid talking about the whole Pierce thing. James doesn’t have the energy to be angry with them as well. The whole thing is worth it because of in person hugs from Becca.

On the 29th of December he knocks on Steve’s door. Steve answers wearing soft sweatpants and a hoodie. His hair is even longer and his beard is getting a little wild. His face is pale and eyes like dark bruises.

When he sees James standing there, he gives that smile again that James can’t fully read. So strange, to not know every line and wrinkle on Steve’s face, on his soul.

‘Come in James,’ Steve gestures, strangely formal. They’d made it to greeting kisses, before, but obviously that’s not where they are at the moment.

Steve makes them both coffee. He looks heavy, weighted down. James can see it because he feels so light now. A tightness in his sternum he has carried for almost a decade now has gone. Things hurt that didn’t before – but with the bright, sharp hurt of pain that will pass.

They sit opposite each other at the kitchen table.

‘It’s really good to see you James,’ Steve says. ‘I’ve watched your interviews. You’re amazing.’ He has a soft, fond smile on his face.

‘Steve I –’ James breaks off. He knows what he wants to say, but turning the throbbing mass that is his feelings for Steve Rogers into words isn’t easy.

They sit in silence for a moment, then Steve takes a deep breath and fixes his cornflower blue eyes on James.

‘It’s okay James. We gave it a go. I know I’ll always love you – you’re it for me I think. But I hurt you so much – I don’t expect you to bear that, ignore that.’ Steve smiles again, and James understands what that hint is alongside the love and the sadness – it’s shame. That’s why Steve’s head bows more that it used to, why he hides his heart more than he used to.

Steve thought he was here to break it off.

‘No Steve, no,’ James reaches across the table and touches Steve’s hand. Steve looks down, like he doesn’t understand.

‘I was really made at you the other day. But that’s okay. People get mad at one another.’

‘But I treated you really badly Bu- James.’ Tears are slipping down Steve’s cheeks, and James thinks perhaps he’d been crying a lot.

‘Yeah, you did, but neither of us need to be trapped in that forever. I see it Steve, I see how you’re – you’re different, more afraid.’

‘I just don’t want to hurt anyone else,’ Steve whispers.

‘We’re humans, Stevie, it happens.’

James stands and walks around the table. Steve watches him, eyes wide and wet. James motions for him to push his chair out and Steve does, breath hitching a little.

James straddles his lap, settling onto strong thighs he knows will hold him. He cradles Steve’s face, tracing long eyelashes, heavy and damp, the deepened lines on Steve’s forehead, around his mouth.

‘We’re not the same,’ James whispers softly. ‘But I think you’re it for me, Steve Rogers.’ He presses a gentle kiss to Steve’s salty lips, licking at the tears gathered there, feeling the hot quick brush of Steve’s breath on his face.

Steve’s arms fold around him, still loaded with heat and trembling tension.

‘Hold me tighter Steve,’ James murmurs, ‘hold me tighter.’ And Steve does. James deepens the kiss as Steve’s embrace pulls them closer together, the rapid movement of their chests, tongues delving hot and hungry.

They’re both moaning, Steve’s like sobs in his throat. Steve bites down on James’ lip and his hips buck, grinding against Steve’s hardening cock.

And then everything is desperate and messy. Steve’s hands on his hips grinding him down harder into Steve’s lap. James’ jeans are too tight and he wiggles and whimpers as Steve thrusts up as James bears down.

Then Steve is unbuttoning his fly, growling.

‘Is this okay James, is this okay?’ The softness of his words is a strange contrast to the coiled strength in his thighs, the sharpness of his teeth, the dig of his nails in James’ spine.

‘Yes Steve yes – need you,’ James mumbles, feeling his eyes flutter as he bares his neck. Steve bites down on his trapezius as his hands delves into James’ jeans. The angle is strange – James balls are still uncomfortably constricted in his jeans but his cock – _fuck_ his cock is in Steve’s hand and Steve’s palm is warm and calloused and gripping tight.

‘So good James, so good,’ Steve’s lips and face are wet against James’ neck. James moans as he squeezes on his dick, runs his thumb across the tip smearing pre-come along the sensitive underside.

‘Please Steve, please,’ James begs, totally controlled by Steve’s hands now – one on his hip preventing him from moving, the other firm and rough fisting his cock.

‘I love you, you’re so beautiful,’ Steve’s lips are briefly pressed close to his ear, biting hard at the earlobe and sending a jolt of sensation through James’ body ending at an electric pulse in his crotch. Heat and the edge of pain from his balls are building and he squirms in Steve’s grip, pleading and mumbling.

Then Steve moves his mouth down, nuzzling James’ chest with his nose, across his nipple – erect and tender under his sweater. Steve bites hard through the fabric and James shouts and comes, spurting into Steve’s fist. Steve keeps pumping his softening cock and James moans and wriggles at the overstimulation, sobbing breaths, tears prickling his eyes.

Steve’s hands move. They’re stroking him soothing him, he’s whispering how good James is, how beautiful. James’ legs tremble and Steve lifts him up, hands under his thighs, carries him to the couch and lays him down. Steve gently wipes James’ cock clean with a tissue, dabbing gently on his belly. Steve pulls his briefs up again, but leaves his jeans undone. He lays down next to James and wraps him up, smelling like sweat and sadness and Steve.

James floats soft and warm and safe in his arms, trying to match the rhythm of their breath.

After some time passes James murmurs – ‘But you didn’t come?’ He’s not sure what the etiquette is now. Had forgotten momentarily that Steve’s body is different now, remembers Steve’s cock hard through the fabric of his sweatpants.

‘It’s not important, James,’ Steve kisses James’ forehead and meets his eyes. Steve blushes a little.

‘Actually, I often don’t. It’s just not – important to me. I don’t know – maybe because I couldn’t very often for so long?’ Steve brushes James hair behind his ear, looking embarrassed.

James touches his face and smiles, trying to tell Steve that he never needs to be embarrassed about that with James. There are stories there for sure – maybe Peggy, maybe other people. They have stories they need to tell each other now.

James settles into Steve’s chest, hearing Steve’s breath hitching in his chest and sensing the damp salt of tears in his hair.

\-----

Becca comes to visit in January, complaining about how awful New York is in the winter.

‘California girl now,’ James ribs her.

Becca and Steve have the longest hug, and James doesn’t blame them.

They both give excellent hugs.

\-----

One day James let’s himself into Steve’s place and Natasha is there. They have some ridiculous tea set between them and they’re laughing.

‘James, look – Natasha got me a present,’ Steve gestures at the tea pot and the set of tiny cups that look like they couldn’t hold anywhere near enough liquid to satisfy anyone’s needs.

Natasha is bundled up in a red knitted sweater with white snowflakes.

‘Christmas is over, Tasha,’ James says, planting a kiss on her head.

‘It’s still winter, James,’ she sniffs, sipping her weird green tea.

Steve smiles at the two of them and James smiles back. It makes sense, he thinks, that Steve and Natasha would love each other so much.

\-----

In February he visits Tony at Stark tower, who complains he never sees James anymore.

James points out Tony has been in Hawaii and Tony huffs. Pepper is in Malibu, so James invites him to dinner.

Tony comes over to James’ apartment and narrows his eyes a little at Steve’s presence.

When Steve goes to the bathroom Tony raises an eyebrow at James and says – ‘Ex-husband? Is this a good idea James?’

‘You of anyone should believe that people can come back from a mistake, Tony.’

Tony sighs and grumbles a little and then when Steve comes back coerces him into drinking scotch.

\-----

Steve hasn’t been painting much. One day James comes in and finds Steve in the studio with a pile of timber off cuts.

James allows himself a moment lingering, staring at Steve’s frown, the way he chews at his lips, hands on hips.

‘What’s happening with these?’ James asks.

Steve looks up still frowning. ‘I have no idea. I just feel like I need to try a different medium.’

‘Building waste?’

Steve scowls at him. ‘It’s from my local environment, James. It’s not like I’m some sort of rugged woodsman.’

‘You’d make a hot lumberjack, Steve,’ James sits down in the chair, grinning.

Steve moves across the room and leans over him, hair still longer, catching the afternoon light, curling around his ears a little, beard gold brown. As he looms over James, growling a little, a hot flicker of desire shivers across James’ skin.

Steve must see it, and his eyes darken.

‘You just sit there. Keep your hands where they are.’

James wriggles in the chair a little, gripping the arms of the chair. The familiar smell of wood and dust and paint in his nose.

Steve’s step behind him. He doesn’t turn.

‘Good boy,’ Steve murmurs and walks around in front of James.

James’ chest tightens and his cock twitches. Steve is holding several coiled lengths of rope in his hands. All black in a soft cotton weave.

Steve meets his eyes. They haven’t done this yet. Have kept it simple – enough to scratch the itch a little.

‘Is this okay?’ Steve asks.

James licks his lips and nods. ‘Yes Steve, yes.’

‘And you’ll tell me if it’s not? What will you say?’

‘Yellow for stop that thing, red for stop everything and paise, and Jersey for mission abort and give me a cuddle.’

Steve’s face splits into a joyful grin and James laughs too. Remembering, both of them, their early conversations about what to do and how to do it. Bucky yelling _Jersey Jersey Jersey_ the time they tried tickling.

Then Steve has his game face on again. He places the rope on the floor.

‘Arms up,’ he commands, and James raises his arms over his head. Steve pulls his henley and his sweater over his head in one movement and folds them and puts them on the floor. James shivers at the cool touch of the air, the touch of Steve’s eyes tracing across his torso.

‘Hand back on the chair.’ Steve is reach for one of the smaller coils of rope. James grips tightly, groin warm and tight.

Then Steve is carefully winding the rope around his wrists, his forearm. James looks down and sees the pattern of the black ropes across his winter-pale skin, feels them tighten to just the right point – cutting in just a little. He lets out a little whimper.

‘Okay?’ Steve asks.

‘Perfect,’ James whispers, unembarrassed and unafraid.

Steve moves to the other arm, carefully tying and testing. James looks at the black against the silver of the arm, sees the plates ripple – telegraphing the buzzing in his nerves. James feels the shudder through his body as he tests the bonds.

Then Steve takes a longer rope, going behind. James feels the whisper of rope across his chest, tightening below his pecs, around his shoulders, the perfect line just below his nipples already rubbing.

‘Steve,’ he says, voice a little broken. Steve’s hands are on his skin, on the rope, adjusting soothing.

Steve’s in front of him again, running his eyes across James.

‘Hips up.’ James lifts his hips obediently and Steve undoes his jeans and tugs them and down and off. James feels his cock swelling in his boxer briefs and wriggles, seeking friction.

‘Not yet,’ Steve admonishes, shaking a finger at him. And no, not yet because Steve is pulling the briefs of, parting James’ knees, taking his right ankle and binding it to the leg of the chair, ropes cutting into his shins, his calf. Then the other leg and – oh – Steve is running his nails along James thighs.

James looks down and whimpers at the sight of his thighs spread, muscles tense and ropey, full and thick. His cock sitting red and weeping against his belly and Steve, still fully dressed, gazing up at him.

The first sharp smack on his upper thigh catches him by surprise and he cries out and feels the bite of the ropes holding him when he starts, the sting blooming and fading.

He looks down and sees the red mark on his thigh and moans. Steve’s head his cocked to the side, as if examining his handiwork.

‘Eyes up James,’ he says, tone even.

James snaps his eyes up, looking straight ahead. Images tumble through his mind – a blindfold, a gag, his head bound to a high-backed chair. Then another smack to the inside of his right thigh and his mind is drawn back into his body. Back to now.

Another and another. Each slap lands with a sharp sound, a sharp sensation. James’ body jerks against the ropes, whimpers and moans and pleas tumble from his lips. Steve’s breath is even and controlled.

Then a pause. James tries not to move his eyes, see what’s happening.

‘You watch this James.’ Steve’s voice is low and full of desire, no matter how steady those warm rough hands are holding his thighs.

James looks down and lets out a shaky exhale as he meets Steve’s eyes. A new kind of steadfastness that was not there when they were young and their blood ran quicker and hotter. James feels his pulse responding with its own steady rhythm.

Steve’s lips curl and he keeps looking at James as he lowers his head and takes the tip of James’ cock in his mouth. James groans as Steve’s tongue flickers over his slit, over the soft flesh of his foreskin, blue eyes with pupils blown still fixed on James.

James is trapped, held as surely as by the ropes.

Then Steve’s hot mouth is engulfing him, tongue still licking and lapping at the soft underside of James’ cock. Going a little deeper, then pulling back, then deeper again. A gentle scrape of teeth draws and pained cry from James’ mouth, then a sobbing moan as Steve’s tongue laves over the same spot.

The whole time Steve is firmly holding James’ hips. He can’t move – whole body contained.

Steve’s nose is nestling in James’ pubic hair, his throat constricting around James’ cock. Every part of him contained by Steve. Tears are running down James’ cheeks. When did they start? A lifetime ago.

Steve pulls back then takes James in again, and again, fingers digging bruises in James’ straining thighs. Steve’s mouth is everything – hot and wet and everywhere Steve is holding him everywhere the thighs the ankles the wrists his chest nipples rubbed and raw and his head held by Steve’s words _You watch this James_ and of fuck he’s coming into Steve’s mouth down his throat and Steve’s swallowing it drinking him licking and sucking and its too much too much too much.

The ropes are loosening dropping heavy and soft to the floor Steve’s picking him up, cradling him bridal style laying him on the bed gone for a moment but back now back with a warm cloth across all of James’ body gentle kisses whispers _so good James so good so beautiful._

‘Clothes off,’ James grumbles as his fingers encounter Steve’s clothes and Steve chuckles and gone for a moment then back pressed warm and naked against James.

James feels the hard length of Steve’s cock between their bellies as he nuzzles into Steve’s neck, smelling sweat and soap and sawdust.

Steve makes a small, surprised sound as James pushes Steve’s shoulder, pushing him onto his back, and straddles him.

‘James,’ Steve looks flushed and surprised. His face is so warm and full of love. James can’t find the way to say – _yes me too I feel that too_.

James leans over and scrabbles into the nightstand drawer, Steve holding him so he doesn’t fall.

‘You don’t have to James, it’s not…’ Steve sounds uncertain and James doesn’t want _that_.

‘I _want_ to Steve I want _more_ of you.’ James looks down desperately at Steve, spread there so beautiful and naked and unsure. James leans down and kisses him full and wet, tasting his own come in Steve’s mouth, tasting his own tears.

Steve moans and holds James tight and close like he wants and James rumbles his pleasure in his throat.

Steve is taking the lube from James, fumbling a little, neither of them wanting to stop kissing, break apart. James mewls at the cold fingers rubbing at his hole, but pushes into it, forcing Steve to breach the rim.

And Steve knows how he wants it – the sting of one finger then two. Scissoring a little, though the angle is awkward. Then they’re breaking apart and James is fucking down a little more on Steve’s big work roughened fingers. He’s reaching behind, taking the tube himself and pumping Steve’s cock. Steve growls in his throat, teeth bared a little and James feels wanton and beautiful and his own cock is half hard again.

Then Steve pulls his fingers out and together they line up, eyes fixed together. James doesn’t even know the names of the sounds he’s making now. Then he fucks himself down in one movement onto Steve’s cock and feels the burning pain as Steve's cock fills him, splits him open; the pleasure, the swell of victory at the ragged cry Steve makes, the crushing grip of his hands on James’ hips.

One still moment as Steve breathes and James lets his body adjust to the intrusion, cock fully hard now.

Steve opens his eyes, full of fire and James breathes _yes yes Steve_ and Steve lifts him up a little then slams back into him. They’re moving together – Steve fucking up hard and unrestrained and James riding him like a storm. James looks down, crying out incoherently. Steve’s jaw is set and his eyes are dark and unafraid.

Steve’s hand squeezes tightly at James’ cock and he comes again, splattering Steve’s belly. Boneless and sobbing as Steve pulls him close and pistons into his burning, gaping hole and fills him with come.

They’re both crying and James wonders how long it will take them to get to the point where there is nothing left of that great sadness to spill into one another, why desire and sadness and blood taste so similar, so like the ocean.

Sticky as they are, they fall asleep like that, finally having made it beyond words, where they can rest together.

\-----

Sam is launching his Senate campaign up in Harlem. James rushes into the room, having run from a class.

He sees Steve across the room, standing near Sam, who is in deep conversation with Maria.

Steve is just standing, surveying the room. His hair is short, which makes James grumble, but the beard is still there. James almost shivers at the sense memory of it scratching against his thighs.

Steve’s done some design work for Sam’s campaign and is obviously looking over the posters on the wall with a critical eye. He’s got a studio in a cheap, industrial corner on Brooklyn so that the apartment isn’t full of concrete dust. He’s wearing a nice button down and a blazer with well-cut navy trousers, but James can see he still has sawdust in his hair.

James’ hair is up in a bun and he’s wearing plaid, and Natasha makes fun of both of them for being so Brooklyn.

It’s spring and they’re going to go driving down to the desert for a couple of weeks over spring break. James wants to show Steve the stars and tell him about them. See the flowers blooming after a wet winter.

Steve catches his eye across the room and gives a dorky little wave. He stands so much straighter now – chin level and heart open to the world. Steve just seems to want to be with James.

‘Bucky,’ Steve pulls him in for a hug and kisses him softly on the lips. That name, it turned out, still belongs to him, when Steve says it with his voice warm and soft – full of love and gratitude. Bucky brushes as his hair and Steve laughs.

Each day they wake up together in the little apartment Sarah Rogers left to Steve, which they worked so hard to keep. Steve's heart beats steady in his chest, and Bucky listens to it, feels the solid living warmth of his lover, who Bucky worked so hard to keep alive. And when the alarm goes and they roll out of bed, when Steve grumbles and frowns as his phone while James makes coffee, they are so grateful – for forgiveness and what lies beyond.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story has been quite the journey for me. Thank you to those who commented and let me know what you were thinking. Thanks to those who read through to the end. I'm not sure everyone made it, and I feel like some people never forgave Steve. Let me know what you think of the ending, of everything! I love talking about writing and you can talk to me here in the comments about anything - critical comments are fine as well. Also I'm on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/stuckyflangst) and [twitter](https://twitter.com/powerfulowl2).
> 
> I like to write a few reflections on what I learned when I finish a story. Feel free to read, or not.  
> \- First, I did plan this story out but then the process of reading people's comments and writing the story derailed my plan. I hadn't intended to have as much Steve POV, but after writing the central chapter all from his POV I couldn't leave him behind. Though we've ended again just with James/Bucky.  
> \- Comments really influenced me this time - both in terms of keeping me writing, but also in terms of thinking about the story and how it developed. For me one of the nice things about fan fiction is the process of interaction. Though it does make it difficult for me to just write something and then post it on a regular schedule!  
> \- For me the story ended up being about making mistakes and moving past them, and moving beyond shame. Getting there was a real journey. Shame is a powerful a debilitating emotion. Do we expect someone who's hurt us to live with that forever?  
> \- I love a good break up story, and there are so few of them (relatively) around. Write the fic you want to see in the world.


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